When you visit someone in the hospital, you may be amazed to see how many tubes are connected to them. Sometimes one of these tubes becomes disconnected. But don't try to be helpful and reattach the tube. You could connect it to the wrong thing and cause serious harm.
Many tubes used in the hospital can be connected to each other, even though they don't belong together. A term used for this is a tubing misconnection. For example, several people have died after tubing from a blood pressure machine or an oxygen mask was mistakenly connected to an intravenous tube (which supplies fluid and medicine into the vein). The wrong connection allowed air to enter the vein. These mistakes are easy to make. Most tubes are clear, and they contain either air or clear fluids. The best solution lies with designing tubes so the ones that shouldn't fit together don't. Hospitals are already beginning to see new types of connectors to make sure certain tubes that do not belong together can’t be connected together.
What you can do: Always call a nurse immediately to help reconnect any tubing that has become dislodged.
Reviewed and updated August 31, 2021
