WHO calls for urgent action to reduce patient harm in healthcare
Millions of patients are harmed each year due to unsafe health care worldwide, resulting in 2.6 million deaths annually in low-and middle-income countries alone. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), most of these deaths are avoidable. The personal, social and economic impact of patient harm leads to losses of trillions of U.S. dollars worldwide.
“No one should be harmed while receiving health care. And yet globally, at least 5 patients die every minute because of unsafe care,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “We need a patient safety culture that promotes partnership with patients, encourages reporting and learning from errors, and creates a blame-free environment where health workers are empowered and trained to reduce errors."