If you thought Canadian doctors and hospitals were safe read the following

quote:

Medical Errors Set Off Alarm Bells May 23, 2004 The first hospital study of its kind in Canada is setting off alarm bells over what appears to be an extremely high number of preventable medical errors. The study, "adverse events" in Canadian hospitals, shows that one in 13 patients treated in Canadian hospitals will be subject to a adverse event, that's 7.5 percent of patients treated. These adverse events could range from delayed hospital discharge, accidental injury, or death. The study which examined hospital data from the year 2000 suggests that between 9000 and 24,000 patients die each year from preventable medical errors. As an example, in one case, a patient was diagnosed to have kidney stones, when in fact the patient was suffering from an abdominal aneurysm, the error resulted in a preventable death. Dr. Peter Norton, co-author of the of the study, suggests the numbers are probably an "underestimate". When compared to the rate of hospital related errors in the United States, Canada has twice as many, according to similar studies conducted in the U.S. However, when compared to Australia, Britain, and New Zealand studies, Canadian medical error rates came in lower. Researchers analyzed the charts of 3,720 patients from 20 hospitals across Canada to compile their data. The hospital data came from the following five provinces, Alberta, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Quebec. The study which appears in the next issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal will be publicly released on May 25th.

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Last edited by starsearcher on May-25-2004 at 20:11