Patients for Patient Safety Champion, Canada

Patients for Patient Safety News

CHAMPION ACTIVITIES

Ed Mendoza, Patients for Patient Safety Champion, Canada


See also
Consumers Advancing Patient Safety

Open Medicine

"Why Open Medicine?"

Hospital secrecy to end

Smoke and Mirrors?

Will there be an effective requirement to tell the truth?

Isn't there a similarity between English common law
and Ontario/Canadian common law
relating to truthfulness?

A move to combat the problem of medical secrecy?


Patients urge access to data on doctors' errors
Apr 19, 2007


Patients demand complaints against MDs be public
April 19, 2007


Stop shielding doctors, patients demand
Apr 20, 2007

Organ-donor rules wait till after Ontario election

Reverse-onus provisions that say that your organs can be harvested whether you like it or not equate us to produce from an agricultural enterprise that provides life sustaining food for us.

Is this morally or ethically acceptable reasoning to equate organ donation to organ harvesting in this manner?

Can the harvesters be trusted?


Ontario eyes reimbursing organ donors
April 11, 2007


Fair Notice?

WHO DRAFT GUIDELINES FOR ADVERSE EVENT REPORTING AND LEARNING SYSTEMS

Imagine a jet aircraft which contains an orange coloured wire essential for its safe functioning. An airline engineer in one part of the world doing a pre-flight inspection spots that the wire is frayed in a way that suggests a critical fault rather than routine wear and tear. What would happen next? I think we know the answer. It is likely that – probably within days – most similar jet engines in the world would be inspected and the orange wire, if faulty, would be renewed.

When will health-care pass the orange-wire test?


Does this article indicate that it will be soon?

Many staff would not want to be
patients in own hospitals

Ont. family cites lax hospital hygiene in death

CTV.ca | Ont. family cites lax hospital hygiene in death:

"'I think there needs to be a culture change within our health care facilities that says if you're not washing your hands, if you are not using gowns and gloves appropriately, that needs to be addressed,'"

One would hope that that the above was only an isolated incident(s).

Obviously this is a wishful, naive, belief
that respect for human life is paramount in this unnamed profession.

Is this following example further evidence that improvement is required?

Alberta hospital closed after super bug, sterilization problems

Is it my imagination, but it appears that whenever it seems that there have been two or three steps forward in improving the system there are three or four steps in reverse that effectively wipe out any improvement and especially any hope for improvement?

The unkindest cut

What does "Standard of Care" mean?


Coming clean on errors
Does that mean washing hands
before and after
each patient examination or visit?

Wrongfully accused can sue

Pathologist must pay woman wrongly jailed
May 17, 2007


"Wrongfully accused mom can sue pathologist: Appeal Court
Decision opens door for others falsely charged"


The actual decision is of interest

COURT OF APPEAL FOR ONTARIO

The system may temporarily give the illusion that you have won,
then the system will show it's the winner.
R.I.P.

How do you diagnose death?

The doctors said they had never heard of anyone coming round
after 30 minutes of apparent lifelessness,
let alone a young baby.


Misdiagnosing death apparently is not very uncommon.
It's disgusting when a procedure,
euphemistically called an autopsy,
is used to verify the death diagnosis.


Some interesting comments

...which is the reason I want to be cremated.
I remember watching a programme when I was younger
which had a man waking up to find he was in his own coffin,
6 feet under.
At least if they make a mistake and I'm alive,
it won't take long to prove them right and me wrong.

Blimey.
If I'm going to wake up in my own coffin,
I REALLY don't want either to find I've been buried 6 ft under and can't get out,
or to be burned alive.
Think I might request a very long lying-in-state.


30 minutes remarkable!?
Baby declared dead revives after hours in cold storage

Aug 18, 2008

Parents find preemie breathing in morgue freezer five hours after she was pronounced dead

Premature baby 'comes back to life'

Medical profession in regulation shake-up

Britain -- Doctors' regulatory power 'to go'

Canada Next!?!

Doctors face independent scrutiny
in GMC shake-up

Will this be an honest attempt to bring justice to the system?
A smoke and mirrors ploy?