Launch of the World Alliance for Patient Safety
Honourable Ministers, Secretary Thompson, Sir Liam, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am delighted to see so many agencies, organizations and professions coming together to form the World Alliance for Patient Safety.
Improved health care is perhaps humanity's greatest achievement of the last 100 years. Yet this achievement is currently threatened from several different directions. Last year we saw with SARS how quickly a new pandemic could take hold worldwide. In many places HIV/AIDS has wiped out decades of progress in health improvement. Drug resistance has become a major challenge for controlling TB, malaria and other communicable diseases. Obstetric care is still too often associated with unnecessary dangers. Bloodborne, foodborne, waterborne and airborne diseases can be transmitted worldwide more rapidly than ever before.
Risks of this kind are particularly present at the point of health care delivery. Improving patient safety in clinics and hospitals is in many cases the best way there is to protect the advances we have made in health care. A concerted effort is now needed to take up this challenge.
Accidents that harm patients can have tragic consequences for them and their families. The care-givers involved also suffer, and in many cases accidents ruin careers. A third kind of casualty is morale in the health care facility where the accident occurs. Where morale is low good practices of safety are even harder to maintain.
Patient safety is sometimes neglected on the grounds that it is an additional expense for health care. This is not a valid obstacle since most people in the health professions are well aware that their first obligation is to do no harm. Even in strictly economic terms maximum patient safety is an essential principle since the cost of accidents is far higher than that of safety measures.
So from every point of view the highest attainable standard of patient safety is absolutely desirable and necessary. At present, even in rich countries, where the best technology and training in the world are available, 10% of those receiving care suffer an adverse event. In poor countries the percentage is almost certainly higher.
For all these reasons the World Health Assembly adopted a resolution in 2002 calling on Member States and WHO to tackle this problem. Since the resolution was adopted there has been a tremendous response from health authorities, experts and agencies around the world. It is clearly an issue of high significance for every country, from the richest to the poorest.
The World Alliance for Patient Safety will be of fundamental importance in supporting the efforts our 192 Member States to take up this challenge. Later this morning we will hear from Sir Liam Donaldson, who will lead the Alliance, about how it will function and deliver on its highly demanding agenda.
The Alliance will have the full support of WHO and its Member States in its effort to make health care safe for patients. Let us all do everything we can to make this new alliance a success.
Thank you.