Following a scare over the use of sedatives at preschools, free blood tests offered in Taipei over the past month found no traces of barbiturates in any of the 34 children tested, city officials announced on Friday.
The city government began offering the free tests to ease fears among parents after a New Taipei City preschool was in May accused of drugging children with sedatives.
The 34 preschoolers were tested from June 17 to Friday last week, but none of the tests came back positive for barbiturates, the city government’s education department said.
Photo: CNA
Last month, it also randomly checked 38 preschools, but found nothing suspicious, the department said.
The findings were in line with checks made on students in New Taipei City’s Sijhih (汐止) and Banciao (板橋) districts in relation to the scare.
The department said it had established standard operating procedures for teachers to follow when giving children medicine on behalf of their parents to avoid confusion and disputes.
The standard operating procedures require teachers to follow strict medication dispensing protocols adopted by nurses and pharmacists in Taiwan — known as the “three reads and five rights” — to prevent mistakes.
For example, medical staff are required to read the label of a drug once when retrieving it from the dispensing container, a second time when providing the drug and a third time when returning the drug to the container.
Medical professionals must also check they have the right patient, the right drug, the right time, the right dose and the right route when providing medication to people.
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