British Vision Issue 60 医疗事故愈演愈烈

Now you'd think that from a health point of view, lying in a hospital was probably the safest place to be, but More4 News and Channel4 News Online have discovered the number of deaths in hospitals due to medical errors have doubled in the last 2 years.

Responding to a Freedom of Information request that was put in by us, the National Patient Safety Agency said from 2004 to 2005, 10 people died as a result of medication errors in hospitals. Fatalities¹ rose the following year, resulting in 16 deaths and increased again last year, killing² 21 people. Now that sounds like a small number, but health service managers told us it represents a growing volume of medical negligence³ cases-cases whose settlement is proving increasingly expensive.

Over 406 million pounds was spent out, says paid out last year to claimants and on top of that, another 145 million to, to legal teams defending or fighting these claims. So, it's a lot of money that's not spent on replacing hips⁴ and, and doing other vital things.

Tonight the Department of Health told More4 News that patient safety was a key priority for the NHS and added, although any avoidable death is one too many, it's important to remember that of the 12 million patients who were admitted to NHS hospitals last year, only 21 deaths were caused by medication incidents. That is 0.0002%. And they added that patient safety was a key priority in the NHS. Well, with me in the studio now to discuss these figures is Peter Walsh from Action Against Medical Accidents, a charity that promotes better patient safety.

The NHS have a point ,don't they, with 12 million patients being treated, only 21 people dying from this kind of medical errors. It's apparently⁵ to be a slender percentage of deaths, isn't that?
Yes, we have to remember that in terms of the proportion of patients treated, it's very small numbers, but actually it's a tragedy of enormous proportions. And the numbers given to you today are probably just the tip of the iceberg⁶, because it's widely accepted that reporting of incidents is far far less than the actual incidents.

What can be done though to try and get over the fact that human error is inevitable⁷ when treating patients?

There'll always be a degree of human error, but what's really disappointing is that there's so much more that the system could do to help reduce the risk of these errors happening in the first place. We want to see more urgency given to design and system solutions. For example, you can design a packaging, and, a labeling of drugs to make it less likely that the wrong drug will be given.

Yeah, what kinds of medication error? Is it because a doctor has prescribed the wrong drug or the wrong amount or is it usually because somebody makes a mistake in administering it?

It's a whole range of things. It could be that someone makes a mistake in grabbing the wrong ampoule, therefore administering the wrong drug. The drug could be administered to the wrong part of the body. For example, the spine⁸ as opposed to being injected into the vein⁹, and or the drug could be given to the wrong patient even, thereby¹⁰ causing a, a massive reaction.

You do with these cases all the time. Is there any simple thing that could be done that would prevent more deaths?

There's no one single thing. It's a raft of measures. Let's just say, there are designed solutions we can look at. We also need not to put staff in a position that leads them to be in more risk of making an error. We need proper supervision¹¹ for staff, and we need proper training for staff before they are allowed to administer certain types of drugs.

Peter Walsh, thanks for talking to us tonight.

Thank you.

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negligence case:【法】 医疗事故

1 fatalities   

n.恶性事故( fatality的名词复数 )；死亡；致命性；命运

参考例句：

• Several people were injured, but there were no fatalities. 有几个人受伤，但没有人死亡。
• The accident resulted in fatalities. 那宗意外道致多人死亡。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

3 negligence   

n.疏忽，玩忽，粗心大意

参考例句：

• They charged him with negligence of duty.他们指责他玩忽职守。
• The traffic accident was allegedly due to negligence.这次车祸据说是由于疏忽造成的。

4 hips   

abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯，耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 )；[建筑学]屋脊；臀围（尺寸）；臀部…的

参考例句：

• She stood with her hands on her hips. 她双手叉腰站着。
• They wiggled their hips to the sound of pop music. 他们随着流行音乐的声音摇晃着臀部。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

6 iceberg   

n.冰山，流冰，冷冰冰的人

参考例句：

• The ship hit an iceberg and went under.船撞上一座冰山而沉没了。
• The glacier calved a large iceberg.冰河崩解而形成一个大冰山。

7 inevitable   

adj.不可避免的，必然发生的

参考例句：

• Mary was wearing her inevitable large hat.玛丽戴着她总是戴的那顶大帽子。
• The defeat had inevitable consequences for British policy.战败对英国政策不可避免地产生了影响。

8 spine   

n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊

参考例句：

• He broke his spine in a fall from a horse.他从马上跌下摔断了脊梁骨。
• His spine developed a slight curve.他的脊柱有点弯曲。

9 vein   

n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络

参考例句：

• The girl is not in the vein for singing today.那女孩今天没有心情唱歌。
• The doctor injects glucose into the patient's vein.医生把葡萄糖注射入病人的静脉。

10 thereby   

adv.因此，从而

参考例句：

• I have never been to that city,,ereby I don't know much about it.我从未去过那座城市，因此对它不怎么熟悉。
• He became a British citizen,thereby gaining the right to vote.他成了英国公民，因而得到了投票权。

11 supervision   

n.监督，管理

参考例句：

• The work was done under my supervision.这项工作是在我的监督之下完成的。
• The old man's will was executed under the personal supervision of the lawyer.老人的遗嘱是在律师的亲自监督下执行的。