Patients expect hospital care
to be safe, and for most hospital stays it is. However, a small proportion of
patients experience some type of unintended harm as a result of the care they
receive. Hospital patients are particularly vulnerable, because many are very
frail and hospital care is increasingly complex. When patients are harmed in
hospital they can experience increased length of stay and are at an increased
risk for morbidity and mortality. In addition to what these patients and their
families go through, their continued need for treatment also has a cost to the
system, in that it keeps other people from getting the help they need (CIHI
& CPSI, 2016).
Patient Story
Brampton Civic Hospital operates on wrong leg
A Brampton family
is frustrated after their 72-year-old grandmother had the wrong leg cut open
during surgery on Christmas Day at the city's new hospital…Amar Kaur Brar, 72,
fractured her thigh bone when she slipped from the stairs at the family's
Brampton home, her granddaughter Kanwaljot Brar, 21, told The Sun yesterday.
"In the operating room, doctors cut Amar's right leg open," Brar
said, adding the cut ran almost the entire length of her grandmother's thigh.
When they realized that the bone in Amar's right leg was okay, they stitched
her up and performed surgery on her left leg….
For case studies of
various “Selected Serious Events” refer to Appendix B.