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Report
Details Medical Error Horrors
The
above is the headline from the June 10, 2004 Canadian publication, "Globe
and Mail". The article reports on a study that shows
that the treatment of patients who have been victims of medical errors cost
the Canadian health care system $750 million each year and adds an
additional 1.1 million days to hospital stays.
The report was released on
June 9th by the Canadian Institute for Health Information. Included in what
the article termed the "graphic details" are the following statistics:
- One in 9 adults contracts an
infection while in hospital, ranging from pneumonia to SARS
- One in 9 patients receives the wrong
medication, or the wrong dose
- One in 16 reported an adverse event
for themselves or a loved one in the past year
- One in 20 women suffers severe
tearing during childbirth
- One in every 81 babies born
vaginally suffers trauma, emerging with injuries such as a broken shoulder
- One in 152 deaths are associated
with preventable adverse events for medical/surgical patients in acute
care hospitals.
- One in every 299 patients receiving
a blood transfusion will have a reaction
- One in every 1,124 adults over the
age of 65 suffers a broken hip during a hospital stay
- One in every 6,667 surgery patients
will have a foreign object left in his or her body after the procedure
- One in 72,046 got infected with
hepatitis B from a blood transfusion
- One 1 in 10 million got infected
with HIV from a blood transfusion
The article notes that this study
follows on the heels of another study revealing that one in every 13
medical/surgical, acute-care hospital patients suffers from an "adverse
event," and that these failings, avoidable and otherwise, kill up to 24,000
Canadians annually.
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