Rituals set up to counter these human errors
If the Federation ASSURALIA no longer collects these figures due to the complexity of bringing together all the amounts, the latest reported 32 million euros in compensation paid in 2016. This suggests the extent of the problem.
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In this amount, the oversights of medical equipment are only a very anecdotal part. “To forget a medical instrument in the body of a patient is extremely rare in view of the number of surgical operations carried out each year in Belgiumsays Doctor of Cannière, head of the cardiac surgery service at the Saint-Pierre CHU in Brussels. However, I do not know a surgeon to whom it did not happen. In operations where the operating field is important – such as an open chest operation for example – a needle or compress can quickly disappear. It is up to medical staff to make it happen. “
A needle or compress can quickly disappear
There is indeed a whole “ritual” set up to limit the risks of forgetting. A kind of check-up like what the plane drivers do before takeoff, to make sure everything is OK. “Before each operation, an instrumentalist prepares a tray where all the instruments are counted: the compresses, the needles, the Kocher pliers … There are sometimes more than 70 instruments. At the end of the operation, the instrumentalist recounts everything to be sure that we have forgotten nothing. If there are 100 compresses at the start, there must be 100 compresses on arrival. And if a compress or a needle, (Editor’s note: a radio) to ensure that she did not stay in the patient’s body. It is a routine that any surgeon must perform. “
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The surgeon, solely responsible even if he delegates
How to explain that some patients wake up anyway with a foreign instrument in their bodies? “It is necessarily a human errorcomments Didier de Cannière. Some surgeons, for example, entrust the operation to sew the epidermis to assistants or nurses. Which can forget an instrument like a compress. But that remains of the surgeon’s responsibility. “
A misadventure which arrived twice in Didier de Cannière, during a career of several thousand operations. “Each time a forgotten compress, he reassures. Each time because of poor count. The first time, it was removed before the patient wakes up. The second time, we had to reopen the patient’s sternum. But that never prejudiced and there were no sequelae because we quickly recovered the instrument. A compress, once it is full of blood, can quickly merge with organic tissue. “
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