Amin A Muhammad Gadit.
Medical errors: who is to be blamed?.
J Pak Med Assoc Jan ;62(4):406-7.

Medical errors do occur daily in almost every part of the world. The significant errors are: misdiagnosis, administration of a wrong drug, improper dose of a given medication, wrong route of administration, retained surgical instruments, transplanting organs of the wrong blood type and incorrect record keeping etc. Approximately 1.3 million people are injured annually in the United States following so-called "medication errors".1 According to the CBC News,2 nearly a quarter of Canadian adults or their family members have experienced a preventable medical error. Quoting a study, the report mentions the magnitude of such errors led to between 9,000 and 24, 000 deaths in Canada in a year. One in nine adults with health problems reported receiving wrong medication or dose.2 According to a survey3 by European Commission (EC), the highest number of medical errors related incidents in hospitals are found in Latvia (32%), Denmark (29%) and Poland (28%) while errors in medicament prescribed by a doctor are most frequent again in Latvia (23%) and Denmark (21%) but also in Estonia and Malta (18% each). Austria tops the ranking having both the fewest medical errors in hospitals (11%) and in medical prescriptions (7%). Incidents are reported to be fairly rare also in Germany and Hungary. Men, young, those with a longer education time, managers, other white collars and students appear to have somewhat more confidence in medical professionals than their fellow respondents. There is always an effort made by institutions to prevent medical errors. A study concluded that substantial proportions of the public and practicing physicians report that they have had personal experience with medical errors; neither group has the sense of urgency expressed by many national organizations.

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