As one of the founding members of Patients for Patient Safety, and a member of the Steering Committee of Pfps for 9 years, until 2016, i would like to tell Neil yes it was 1 patient in ten / not one person in ten, so it was dramatic when Sir Liam Donaldson fought for establishing the Patients Safety program in the WHO and fought again strongly to establish PATIENTS for PATIENT SAFETY starting in 2004. It was an uphill battle and the UK government gave several millions pounds to fund it.
Errors in health care are very common and yes it is 1 in 10 Patients.
Myself as an infant I had a combination of new combinations DTP vaccine and Oral experimental which gave me polio all four limbs at age 9 months.
And I have suffered several major health errors in my life, including bad surgeries (2), a dramatic fall by a bad carer in rehabilitation center (I lost my semi valid left arm and shoulder). As I recently gave lectures seminars in two different big retirement places in KZN South Africa, in 2024 and 2025, I had the opportunity to review Sir Donaldson post 'retirement' figures and they are dramatic. Enormous errors in diagnostics, 100s of 1000s of errors in medication in the UK alone yearly.
The fact that the remedy demands concertation and collaboration between Patients action groups and health services should not blind us to that dark reality.
And this affects transmissible diseases as well as NCDs.
1. Transmissible diseases. It is very sad that in countries with HIV epidemics the fact that it is a bloodborne disease transmitted in health care, regular, communal etc is forgotten. In KZN where I lived part of the year since 2023, the rate of HIV infections among young women is extremely high, over 20% and yet people are not aware of the risk from reuse of needles in injections
When a child is sick, mother brings the young one to the nearest free clinic where the baby is systematically given an injection. (Presumably some antibiotics!!)
The Punjab in Pakistan is also a very high HIV rate, like KZN in South Africa. But there has been a campaign or expose on children having HIV from injections, notably with Dr Altaf, formerly WHO; and now Aga Khan Foundation. And his group even got the British BBC to do an exposé on dirty health care.
But here we wish to talk of NCDs
Who remembers the Geneva Patient who got double breast removal mastectomy for cancer before it was recognized that there had been an error in specimen in the lab and the advanced cancer concerned another patient! !
Geneva has the best paid health labor force in the world ! Yet errors do occur in wealthy Switzerland.
Then there is no attention to cleaners, in Geneva; Paris or New York, or most places, health establishments outsource cleaning and the cleaning staff has no training on infection control! I often had to speak with the cleaners, most of them eager to learn
I remember one event at the WHA in Geneva, when Dr Tedros was flanked with a lady from a WHO dept with an upside down MOP, A BROOM! Unfortunately WHO is always short of funds to pursue great initiatives.
I remember that as rhe first time that the issue of flood cleaning, rails, had been brought up in a WHA. And I participated in different capacities, in WHA between 1980s and 2022!
Then on Care and NCD:
McKinsey estimates that in the coming decade there will be 1.6 billion elderly between the age of 70 and +100.
And investments in aging have an ROI of 3 !
WITS University study on aging and exercice nationwide in South Africa, found that people who exerciced regularly lived 15 years longer without major ailments !
This information is crucial
Myself I exercised and or swam daily since childhood, it allowed me like Forrest Gump to drop all braces, orthopedic shoes; high crutches etc and to walk kilometers since adolescence for several decades.
Only got a wheelchair permanently after 60.
Then a last comment on patient safety:
Dont try to bring down the figures, the real disaster is higher than u can imagine
We need more heros like Sir Liam Donaldson.
Yesterday, I was in Dubai, UAE, where i live now, all day i listened to a major event organized by the Morocco SIM and their network: NewZealand, UAE, UK around the world. And it is available for replay on the web
It was Amazing!! How simulation exercices can help train staff in health systems and remind all that the solution to unsafe health systems is not blame, isn't to point the finger or licence staff: no, THE NO BLAME ATTITUDE is required. As Sir Liam also insisted and continues to say..
Safety needs to be improved dramatically in a common effort.
Xpertone organizes events on AMR and Pandemic Prevention.
Garance Upham
Ceo Xpertone LLC, Dubai UAE
Tel /WhatsApp:+97155 8967269
Email garance@safeobserver.org
garance@xpertonehealth.com
www.xpertonehealth.com
HIFA profile: Mrs Garance Fannie Upham, has 40+ years of involvement in health care issues in Africa and LDC countries, and some in India (Norwegian Church AID study on bloodborne HIV in India), and occasional work with the Tamil Nadu M.G.R. University in Chennai)
She is President, AMR Think-Do-Tank, Geneva international, and has been Editor-in-Chief, AMR Control 2015,16,17,18,19-20, and 2021 :
"AMR & The Environment, a Global and One Health Security Issue"
She has been a Guest Member, Asia-Pacific Working Group on AMR, and of the CSO, Global AMR R&D Hub, Berlin
She is also Member, Global Network on Emergency Medicine, GNEM,
and ex-Member, Steering Com., Patients for Patient Safety, PSP, World Health Organization (2004-Jan 2014)
Member of the Board One Health Africa Institute
Founding Mb, Xpert OneHealth & Patient Safety, South Africa
& Xpert One, UAE
Mobile tel.: +27 664422997 / +971 55 981 7218
Email: garance AT xpertonehealth.com
https://xpertonehealth.com