My aunt died last month. She was only in
late fifties, suffering from unknown serious disease after her knee replacement surgery. It was
detected, after her death, that it was some unknown
type of infection that infected her operated part of the body which
could not be detected easily and she suffered a lot and then died. The
infection came from Operation Theater.
This incident gave a deep impact
in my mind which forces me to probe into the matter. To
my surprise according to a study: in Delhi hospitals one in ten patients
admitted for serious surgical condition and died , many suffered severe harm
due to preventable errors. When I studied further about such type of incident
(call it preventable hospital errors), I could find a study says Health care related errors are real and proven in numerous cases continuing their silent killings.
Such errors are not just not doctors and nurses committing mistakes but safe health care
are more an administrative and hospital system related issue, hardly any
individual doctor or nursing staff is involved in such type of health care
errors. Poorly designed, poorly maintained,
poorly sanitized hospitals and lack of culture of safety are the main
reasons for such deaths. Purchase of substandard or faulty equipments and
counterfeit medicines, poor infection control system, lack of communication to
patients and their attendants, outdated knowledge of doctors and nursing staff
add to it.
Other than this, system related harm is much magnified
in India due to its unique, unflattering aspects. For example many private
medical colleges, nursing institutions, granting degrees (means license to
practice) simply by taking huge sum of money as “fees”. Hence hundreds and
thousands of health professionals, with lack of basic knowledge of handling patients,
are working in hospitals and naturally medical errors happening day in and day
out.
Safety in health care became a big issue only after it came
under consumer protection act. Which
took hospitals, doctors and other staffs legally
accountable for their faults? This topic “safety in hospitals” came into
focus only in early 2000. Hospitals started getting accreditations, after
giving rigorous training of health professionals and
staffs. Still there is no serious political commitment at the national or state
level for the safety of health care till to date.
These are stories of big cities but in small town, block hospitals people have never
even heard the word “safe health care”.
Culture of quality control and safety are really very
challenging. More difficult is to implement it in generally crowded, cramped
hospitals. People who suffer most are the poor people of India who
get treatment in Government hospitals. They are the worst sufferer of
preventable health care errors. To improve the Indian healthcare system a
strong political will is needed, generous funds has to be allocated in public
health system.
To address the issue of safety health care, we the people of
India, have to raise our voice against corruption that sparked the global
interest in the rampant practices of kickbacks for referrals, revenue target in
corporate hospitals and the capitation fees in private medical colleges in
India. Medical Council of India (MCI) was established under the Medical Council
Act in 1933 which has the
responsibility of maintaining the standard of medical education providing
ethical oversight. Later MCI became inactive with the vested interest of
politicians, many of whom own private medical colleges. These politicians
hounded the whistleblowers who have attempted to raise the question of sanctity
of such private medical colleges, leading to mushrooming substandard medical
colleges everywhere in India. Result is seen now in hospitals that have become
breeding house of death instead of giving life. Study says about five million
people suffer every year due to unsafe
medical care , although this is only an
average data, actual magnitude of data
may be many fold than this.
What is the need of the hour
is to overhaul MCI, formation of a new regulatory framework with the new
national medical commission, generate awareness among people and political will
to take patients safety seriously, so that no aunt should suffer and die like
mine due to hospital error .
[ALPANA GHOSE]
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