Gauteng Health reports it recorded fewer than 1% of adverse events in its public health facilities from March 2018 to June 2019.
News24 reports that the Health MEC said “adverse events” refers to incidents which risk patient safety, but could not be foreseen or necessarily avoided. “The total number of patients seen in the period 1 April 2018 to 31 March 2019 was 21,079,658. Of these, the recorded serious adverse events were about 0.057% (12,027). The total number of patients seen in the period 1 April 2019 to 30 June 2019 was 1,695,345. Of these the recorded serious adverse events were about 0.0016% (2,696),” MEC Bandile Masuku is quoted in report as saying.
The events occurred in facilities such as Charlotte Maxeke Hospital, Helen Joseph Hospital, Tambo Memorial Hospital, Jubilee Hospital and Tshwane Rehabilitation Centre.
“It’s not necessarily negligence, it is harm that is caused by treatment or any form of procedure that we will normally institute and it can normally not only relate to medicine but vaccinations that we give that can cause harm or damage. It is something that we cannot avoid because it is how you react to a drug. They go through different phases of being tested, upon its registration … there will be side-effects, you will get rare side-effects that will happen after 1,000,001 people get that medicine. It’s an issue of risk and benefit,” Masuku said.
The report says adverse events also speak to medical procedures that may cause side-effects that put the patient’s safety at risk.
[link url="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/gauteng-department-of-health-records-less-than-1-of-adverse-events-20190825"]News24 report[/link]