Death tally understates problem

Death tally understates problem
The landmark acknowledgement that preventable mistakes killed 40 public hospital patients in one year understates the problem and it may well be at least two years before a more reliable count can be made. The Government-appointed Quality Improvement Committee yesterday released the first national tally of "serious and sentinel events" at district health boards, following requests by the Herald and other media for details of the harm to patients.

So what they are saying is that the total number of deaths and mistakes in NZ hospitals could be much, much higher because hospitals only have a voluntary register when they screw up, and the reason given to us as to why the hell aren’t they forced to record their mistakes we are told that couldn’t possibly happen because hospital staff would be too frightened to be honest – what the fuck? Is this mickey mouse noddy land shit a surprise to anyone else? How can you ‘hide’ gross incompetence or death? If the system allows for that ability to hide death then changes are long over due and the media should be trawling now for stories of hospital incompetence to name and shame hospitals and embarrass the Government, because the jargon heavy Quality Improvement Committee will try and produce media unfriendly reports to also try and hide this from audience interest.