Mr. Khue made the statement at the yesterday conference “ Implementation and instruction of patients’ safety and medical error prevention” organized by the Ministry and the World Health Organization in Ho Chi Minh City.
The 83-criteria leaflet issued by the Ministry includes circulars and instruction for medical infirmaries to follow for patients’ safety.
Mr. Khue stressed that before, medical institutions tried to hide medication incidents; however, medical mistakes are now revealed to find out the cause and ways to prevent in the future.
According to WHO, one out of ten inpatients suffers medical mistakes including half being preventable medication errors while over one million in the world died of operational incidents.
As a result, medication error has become one of leading cause of injuries and deaths in the globe. Medical errors not only cause detrimental impact on patients but also increase medical bills.
In Vietnam, common medication errors included surgical sponges being left in a woman's abdomen , vaccination incidents, mistakenly operate on wrong limb; or dialysis incident in Hoa Binh Province.
WHO expert in Vietnam Dr. Vu Dinh Huy blamed complicated healthcare system, pressure on medical workers, patient overload, shortage of nurse and physicians and bad infrastructure for the medical error.
According to Dr. Huy, active participation of patients and patient relatives by providing good information of medical record will help much in reducing medication error.
Moreover, infirmaries should publicize the incident and find out the cause to avoid it in next time.
