Name and shame - ‘serious reportable events’ in hospitals

IF ever people had cause to pray not to end up in one of this country’s troubled hospitals, it was yesterday’s Irish Examiner front page report of what could happen to them.

In a frightening list of what the HSE described as ‘serious reportable events’, you could be sexually assaulted, abducted, or find missing surgical instruments lurking inside you.

Compared to any one of 233 scary incidents, an unlisted but true story, concerning a Cork patient who narrowly avoided being shaved on the wrong side before a kidney removal operation by informing the trainee doctor he was holding the diagram upside down, pales into insignificance.

Fortunately, the HSE is implementing a range of improvements. Unfortunately, they stop short of naming and shaming the hospitals. At the end of the day, that might be more effective in terms of convincing them to put their house in order, thus making hospital a place where patients can feel secure instead of constantly looking over their shoulder in order to keep safe — or alive.