AGL 42.00 Increased By ▲ 3.46 (8.98%)
AIRLINK 130.00 Increased By ▲ 0.50 (0.39%)
BOP 5.75 Increased By ▲ 0.14 (2.5%)
CNERGY 4.03 Increased By ▲ 0.17 (4.4%)
DCL 8.74 Increased By ▲ 0.01 (0.11%)
DFML 40.98 Decreased By ▼ -0.78 (-1.87%)
DGKC 88.80 Increased By ▲ 0.50 (0.57%)
FCCL 35.14 Increased By ▲ 0.14 (0.4%)
FFBL 66.55 Decreased By ▼ -0.80 (-1.19%)
FFL 10.77 Increased By ▲ 0.16 (1.51%)
HUBC 109.10 Increased By ▲ 0.34 (0.31%)
HUMNL 14.80 Increased By ▲ 0.14 (0.95%)
KEL 4.77 Increased By ▲ 0.02 (0.42%)
KOSM 7.27 Increased By ▲ 0.32 (4.6%)
MLCF 42.81 Increased By ▲ 1.16 (2.79%)
NBP 61.00 Increased By ▲ 1.40 (2.35%)
OGDC 180.08 Decreased By ▼ -2.92 (-1.6%)
PAEL 25.94 Decreased By ▼ -0.31 (-1.18%)
PIBTL 6.10 Increased By ▲ 0.13 (2.18%)
PPL 146.50 Decreased By ▼ -0.20 (-0.14%)
PRL 23.92 Increased By ▲ 0.31 (1.31%)
PTC 16.64 Increased By ▲ 0.08 (0.48%)
SEARL 71.61 Increased By ▲ 3.31 (4.85%)
TELE 7.30 Increased By ▲ 0.07 (0.97%)
TOMCL 36.59 Increased By ▲ 0.64 (1.78%)
TPLP 8.02 Increased By ▲ 0.17 (2.17%)
TREET 15.06 Increased By ▲ 0.86 (6.06%)
TRG 50.75 Increased By ▲ 0.30 (0.59%)
UNITY 27.50 Increased By ▲ 0.75 (2.8%)
WTL 1.25 Increased By ▲ 0.04 (3.31%)
BR100 9,872 Increased By 66.5 (0.68%)
BR30 29,845 Increased By 167.2 (0.56%)
KSE100 92,791 Increased By 486.4 (0.53%)
KSE30 28,937 Increased By 97.1 (0.34%)

A row broke out in Italy on Tuesday over controversial figures estimating that some 90 people a day die in the country's hospitals due to bad medical practices.
Some newspapers described the figures as a "massacre", noting that the yearly number of about 33,000 estimated deaths was more than three times that in road accidents. The numbers, given in a presentation on Monday at a convention of the Italian Association of Oncological Medicine (AIOM) - but contested by other groups - were given wide play in newspapers and television.
The estimates said most of the errors were made in operating theatres (32 percent), followed by those in patient wards (28 percent), emergency rooms (22 percent) and out-patient clinics (18 percent).
Some of the deaths could be attributed to inefficient organisation in hospitals, most of which are state-run and overcrowded. "Whatever the correct numbers are ... the data given by AIOM confirms the urgent need to face up to the issue of errors in medicine in order to guarantee maximum safety for citizens who turn to our country's health services every day," said Health Minister Livia Turco.
The most frequent errors involved decisions related to orthopaedics, tumours, obstetrics and surgery. Many involved administrating the wrong type of medicine to patients, partly because they had similar generic or brand names.
The numbers were contested by several medical groups. Amedeo Bianco, president of Italy's doctors' association, said they had to be taken with a pinch of salt. But he said that while such estimates were prone to "wide margins of error," they did send "a worrying message" that needed to be looked at in more detail.
They were also contested by Maurizio Maggiorotti, head of the Association of Doctors Unjustly Accused of Malpractice. "This is not only false but is has no scientific foundation or statistical credence," he said in a statement.

Copyright Reuters, 2006

Comments

Comments are closed.