Three Brazilians die every five minutes in hospitals for avoidable failures

Three Brazilians die every five minutes due to failures in hospitals that could be avoided, which turns the so-called hospital "adverse events" into the second cause of death in Brazil, according to a report released today by the Institute of Supplementary Health Studies (IESS).

Rio de Janeiro, Nov 22 (EFE) .- Three Brazilians die every five minutes due to failures in hospitals that could be avoided, which turns the so-called "adverse events" Hospitals in the second cause of deaths in Brazil, according to a report released today by the Institute of Supplementary Health Studies (IESS).

According to the study, venial failures Like errors in the dose of a medicine, the incorrect use of equipment or hospital infections caused 302,610 deaths in public and private hospitals in Brazil in 2016.

In average, the "adverse events" caused 829 deaths per day in Brazil last year, three every five minutes or one every minute and a half, according to the first Safety Yearbook Hospital Assistance, which the IESS entrusted to researchers from the Federal University of Minas Gerais.

Failures in hospitals, therefore, cause more daily deaths in Brazil that traffic accidents (129 per day), violence (164) and cancer (500), and are only behind cardiovascular diseases (950) as the leading cause of death in Brazil.

According to the study, the main victims of these failures are patients with less than 28 days of life or with more than 50 years, while the most common adverse events are hospital infections (9.7% of the total).

The study clarifies that adverse events can not always be attributed to "errors, negligence or low quality" but to deficiencies that in Most cases can be avoided.

In addition to deaths, hospital failures affect about 1.4 million patients in Brazil each year, who suffer sequelae that can compromise their daily activities and even cause psychological problems.

The problem also raises the costs of healthcare activity in Brazil, since they generate additional costs that the study calculates in 10.900 million reals (about 3.406 million dollars) per year.

This is because patients who suffer some sequelae due to adverse events remain hospitalized about three times more than the time initially planned when admitted to the hospital.

The seriousness of the situation is not unique to Brazil, since the World Organization of Health (WHO) estimates that 42.7 million people die every year in the world due to adverse events.

The United States, for example, registers about 400,000 cases annually or 1,096 daily, above the Brazilian average, according to the figures quoted by the researchers.

"There is no infallible health system, even the most advanced suffer with the events adverse. professor of the Federal University of Minas Gerais and one of those responsible for the study.

The executive superintendent of the IESS, Luiz Augusto Carneiro, admits that the lack of information prevents a patient from knowing how many hospital infections or diagnostic errors are recorded in the hospital that chooses for some intervention.

"We need to promote a debate on the quality of the services provided in health based on the performance of the providers and, in this way, to offer patients as much information as possible so that they can choose who they will trust their life with, "he said.