HSE Report Admits Surgery Performed on Wrong Patient

A report on serious incidents occurring in a range of Irish hospitals has revealed that surgeries were performed on the wrong patients, patients were sexually assaulted and foreign objects were left inside bodies. “Foreign objects” left inside the body after operations and incidents including sexual assault on patients are all included in a detailed breakdown of “serious reportable events”. During a 19-month period between March 2014 and September 2015, 233 serious incidents were logged. In 100 of those incidents, the patient later died though it is unspecified whether the cause of death was related to the incident. “It is incumbent on all healthcare staff and managers to understand what went wrong, to learn from it and to respond,” the HSE report says. One case of surgery performed on the wrong patient is reported. Another involving the wrong surgical procedure on a patient and 14 incidents of the “unintended retention of a foreign object in an enclosed body cavity after surgery” are also detailed in the report. The malpractices are attributed to care and environmental management. Sixteen cases involved the death of a baby and there were 12 incidents reported of “sexual assault on a patient or other person within or on the grounds of a healthcare service facility”. One incident noted a “patient death or serious disability associated with the use of contaminated medications, medical devices or biologics”. Six deaths are a result of the use of a medical device for “functions other than as intended”.