The World Health Organisation (WHO) has deplored the level of measures adopted for patients’ safety in Nigeria.
Therefore, the global health agency has called for improved efforts towards better patient management in the country.
The WHO Country Representative to
Nigeria, Dr. Wondimagegnehu Alemu, stated this yesterday during a
national healthcare management conference on patient safety in Abuja.
Alemu said the present situation showed that there is more work to be done to achieve patient safety in Nigeria and in Africa.
He said: “The burden of unsafe health
care delivery is huge, not only to the patient but to the healthcare
system and to the nation in the long run, as it results in loss of
confidence in the health care system.
“Common patient safety issues include
misdiagnosis, medication errors including antimicrobial resistance,
workforce safety, health care-associated infections, and surgery-related
complications.”
According to him, addressing patient safety issues would lead to huge savings for countries on healthcare expenditure.
Alemu said the leadership in healthcare
must rise to the situation by providing a conducive environment for
change in practices, regulation and coordination of patient safety
interventions and effort.
He added that this could be done
through provision of strategic direction and sustained political will
for the institutionalisation of patient safety culture in our healthcare
system.
The WHO representative noted that the
priority actions to start with include development of a policy for
strategic direction and mainstreaming patient safety, building capacity
of health workers and employing the use of safe and suitable
infrastructure as well as ensuring maintenance culture and safety of the
healthcare environment for patients and even the health care providers.
Others include patient safety education
and training at all levels; developing quality improvement plan for
health care delivery; making functional regulatory framework that
ensures patient safety; and measuring the burden and cost of unsafe
health care system through surveillance, vigilance, and use of
technology and innovations.
Corroborating WHO’s observation, the
Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, who was represented by Dr.
Omobolanle Olowu, said many patients have gone to health facilities to
seek solutions to their health problems only to come out worse because
of so many unwarranted causes that could be avoided.
Adewole said the country must urgently
find strategies to medical errors, negligence to patients so that they
could be reduced or completely avoided.
Also, the Dean of Rova College of
Healthcare Executives, Dr. Emmanuel Abolo, called for systems and
orientation of healthcare providers that would make it difficult for
errors to occur.
In her remark, the Executive Director
of International Society of Media in Public Health (ISMPH), Ms. Moji
Makanjuola, said there was need to mentor young doctors in order to end
the many preventable deaths from medical errors.
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