As a recipient of services, the public is naturally interested and concerned to know how safe hospitals and health systems are. From health official’s manner towards patients and attendants to performing a proper surgery, people have raised questions in the past. But many go unreported. In the absence of such sources of information, the Jigme Dorji Wangchuck National Referral Hospital (JDWNRH) is now urging the public to make use of the Hospital Incident Report System if the services are not safe or not up to their expectations.
Every year, on an average, the JDWNRH receives 10 to 12 reports on some unfortunate events from the patients, relatives or from within the health staff.
“It’s a report of when things happen to a patient which is regarding patient’s safety and also regarding the quality of care. Then there may be also a complaint from the patient or from the patient’s party against the behaviour of a hospital’s staff. There could be other incidences that happened between a security guard and a patient. Some of the reporting could be on the wrong diagnosis, the wrong operation performed, patient falling from bed, laboratory reports not within the correct parameters, or giving of wrong medicines to the patients. These are all incidence that usually happens in the hospital,” said Dr Gosar Pemba, the Medical Superintendant at the JDWNRH.
The hospital, however, says that there could be many incidents that go unreported. And to battle this, the hospital has a system. The concept behind the Hospital Incident Report System is simple. They provide a mechanism for people to give feedback and identify risks online so that organisations can implement interventions to reduce these risks.
“If such incidence is not reported, analysed and measure put in place to prevent such incidents from happening in future, then this can happen very frequently. More frequently in a hospital, because staff could become complacent since there is no reporting and there are no corrective measures put in place to prevent such incidents from happening,” the Medical Superintendant said.
The hospital says that the case will be investigated by a committee.
“The incidents sometimes are minor but some could also be major that results in injury to the patient or disability or even death. So the incidence that can lead to death or severe injuries to patients has to go to the Bhutan Medical and Health Council. At the hospital level, we deal mainly minor incidence which is corrective resulting either from system failure or either from like in the case of medicines lookalike or from the lack of knowledge and competency of the staff. Then the staff need to undergo short training to increase his or her competency in that. Those are usually the ones we deal at the hospital level,” he added.
Although this system was there before, it was a three-page form and not online which is why the hospital believes that most events went unreported. However, with the online system and the form just made into a single page, the hospital expects more complaints to come in. Anyone can lodge their complaints at https://www.jdwnrh.gov.bt/incident-reporting-form/ “It is completely anonymous. You do not need to include your name to complete the form. The information you provide shall be used to support our goal of higher standards of safety, transparency and accountability in our hospital,” a release from the hospital says.
The complaints can also be made verbally to the quality assurance division of the hospital or Bhutan Medical and Health Council.
Samten Dolkar
