Medical errors are more common in Minas Gerais.
The case of the nurse who gave acid to a child brings controversy to the forefront: the error rate in the state is 1,16 per 100 inhabitants. Higher than that of Rio, São Paulo, the Federal District, and Bahia.
Minas 247 - Two recent cases have brought a difficult topic to the forefront of discussions in Minas Gerais: medical malpractice. Humans make mistakes in any profession; but if the person is a doctor or someone who deals directly with health, the error is more costly and can lead to death. Both cases involved children: a two-year-old boy who ended up in the ICU after receiving acid instead of medication, and a baby who had milk injected intravenously instead of saline solution.
The newspaper Estado de Minas conducted an interesting survey based on data from the Unified Health System (SUS): the rate of medical errors in Minas Gerais surpasses that of states like Rio and São Paulo. In Minas Gerais, last year, 227 people were hospitalized for this reason, which gives a rate of 1,16 cases per 100 inhabitants. In Rio, the rate is 0,34, or almost 3,5 times lower. In São Paulo, it is 0,5 per 100. In the Federal District and Bahia, it is 0,8.
Read the article below. Matthew Parreiras for the newspaper State of Minas:
Medical errors in Minas Gerais surpass those in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.
The case of the two-year-old boy who ended up in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) after receiving acid instead of medication at the hospital, and the case of the baby who received milk intravenously instead of saline solution last week, are not isolated incidents in Minas Gerais. The state is one of those with the highest number of recorded complications in healthcare and medical errors that culminate in hospitalizations and deaths, according to records from hospitals in the Unified Health System (SUS). Last year, according to SUS data, 228 people were hospitalized due to this type of error. Compared to states like Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Bahia, and the Federal District, Minas Gerais has proportionally more records of malpractice. The error rate in Minas Gerais is 1,16 cases per 100 inhabitants. This is 3,4 times higher than in Rio de Janeiro, which is 0,34 per 100 inhabitants. 2,3 times higher than that of São Paulo, at 0,5 per 100, and 1,5 times higher than the rates in the Federal District and Bahia, which reach 0,8 hospitalizations per 100 inhabitants.
The SUS (Brazilian Unified Health System) survey, which covers the entire year of 2011, considers complications in healthcare to include foreign objects left in a patient's body, hemorrhages during surgical procedures, lack of asepsis of instruments and facilities, contaminated medications, dosage errors, among others. However, responsibility does not fall solely on doctors, as these procedures can also be performed by nurses and nursing technicians.
At least eight people died in SUS (Brazilian public healthcare system) facilities in Minas Gerais last year due to failures in medical and hospital care. This number is also higher than that recorded in São Paulo, where there were four deaths, and in Rio de Janeiro and the Federal District, where only one case was registered. Bahia does not yet have last year's figures on deaths due to errors in healthcare.
According to the president of the Regional Council of Medicine of Minas Gerais (CRM-MG), João Batista Gomes Soares, part of the blame for infections and negative repercussions from surgeries and treatments lies with the lack of adequate conditions in hospitals, both public and private. "Sometimes doctors put themselves in poor conditions to fulfill their mission of saving lives, against all odds. When doctors stop seeing patients, that's when things will get complicated," he warns.
The numbers seem bad, but they represent a 4% improvement compared to the previous year. According to the SUS (Brazilian Public Health System), in 2010 there were 238 hospitalizations of people who needed medical attention after receiving care at a health institution. However, last year's figure represents a 93% jump compared to the 118 cases registered in 2009.
Analyzing data from the SUS (Brazilian Public Health System), the president of CRM-MG (Regional Council of Medicine of Minas Gerais) states that a large part of the occurrences are hospital-acquired infections. “The doctor's responsibility lies with the procedures they perform. Instrumentation, administration of incorrect medication, sealing off the work area to contain contamination—all of this falls under the institution's and the nurses' and nursing technicians' purview,” he affirms. “Every time a medical error occurs, we are notified. Since we are not aware of these cases, they certainly do not fall under our jurisdiction,” he emphasizes.
The news outlet sought comment from the Regional Nursing Council regarding the figures, but the organization stated that it only provides information to the press until noon, the time during which its communications office is open.