Mon, 30 Nov 2009 5:23p.m.
By Lachlan Forsyth
Nearly 100 patients died in public hospitals last year from medical mistakes like delayed diagnoses and incorrect treatment.
That is on top of another 200 patients who survived critical or life-threatening human error while in hospital.
Hospital medical staff work tirelessly and around the clock, but mistakes are made and people occasionally die needlessly.
The Health Ministry compiles a national register of such deaths and it is grim reading, especially for Waikato and Canterbury.
In Waikato, 60 people died in hospital, compared with 44 in Canterbury, 31 in Auckland, 29 in Counties-Manukau and 22 in the capital and coast District Health Board.
Nigel Millar of the Canterbury DHB says the report is vital for hospitals.
“No one would ever think of not looking for the black box recorder in a plane crash, and this is the same sort of process – how did it happen?
“Every time something bad happens we owe it to everyone involved to learn as much as we can from it and to share it with other health boards and institutions around the world.”
Patient falls were the most common cause, with more than a quarter of all reported incidents.
Incorrect treatments and suicides – both 12 percent – were the next highest causes, while 10 percent were down to misdiagnoses.
“The key thing is that we have incidences where things went wrong, sometimes very badly wrong, that we can examine in detail and understand what happened,” said Mr Millar.
The committee which compiled the report says it is not interested in apportioning blame; it simply wants to improve the system.
The committee also says a clinician is more likely to report an event if they know that information will help prevent a recurrence.
But there is no need for panic - such serious events account for less than a third of all admissions.
Over the same period more than 950,000 people were safely treated and discharged.
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