Kathleen Finlay interviewed on CBC’s Go Public
Calls medical errors a silent epidemic that needs to be treated as a public healthcare crisis.
Urges creation of healthcare equivalent of TSB to investigate and reduce critical hospital errors like surgery ‘never’ events.
Those mishaps are part of a “silent epidemic,” according to advocate Kathleen Finlay, founder of the Center for Patient Protection, an independent,Toronto-based group aimed at improving health care.
“People are being injured, permanently disabled and even dying … so the federal government needs to treat this as the public health-care crisis it is,” said Finlay.
And when it comes to such incidents, Finlay says the future looks grim, based on a 2017 report from the Canadian Patient Safety Institute, a not-for-profit health-care watchdog.
The report found more than 12 million Canadians in hospital and home-care settings will be harmed by the healthcare system over the next 30 years, costing the health-care system an additional $2.75 billion per year.
Another 1.2 million people will lose their lives.
So what can be done?
Finlay would like to see those black boxes routinely used in operating rooms across the country. She’s also calling on the federal government to create an independent organization that would investigate hospital medical errors and wants Canada to implement a national hospital rating system, like those in the United States.
She also wants to see provinces standardize what data is collected and reported about medical errors so Canadians have a clear picture of what’s happening.