€81m bill for incidents in hospitals

A hospital patient was subjected to a medical error or unexpected injury once every six minutes last year — costing the taxpayer €222,475 a day to resolve the mistakes.

Figures revealed by the HSE show 85,918 adverse medical incidents occurred in hospitals last year, costing the taxpayer €81m.

The mistakes include thousands of diagnosis, medication, child birth, and surgery problems — and are “in line” with international data suggesting one in 10 hospital patients will “experience some harm”.