More than 550 objects have been unintentionally left in Canadian medical and surgery patients between 2016 and 2018, and the problem appears to be getting worse.
TORONTO -- says 553 foreign items -- such as sponges and medical instruments -- were left behind over that two-year period.
Tracy Johnson, CIHI's director of emerging issues, said the data only notes how often the mistakes occurred, but not how or why. Johnson said several peer countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, do not report on cases where foreign objects are left behind, making comparisons difficult.Still, Johnson said there's clearly work to be done to improve patient safety, noting the average rate of forgotten items was 9.8 incidents per 100,000 surgeries.
The report also found Canada had the highest rate of severe tears during vaginal childbirth among 23 countries measured, at twice the average. "This is just the tip of the iceberg with respect to all types of serious preventable patient harm that happens in health-care institutions," said Kossey, adding her group's data suggests one out of every 18 people currently in a hospital bed will experience some form of preventable harm during their hospital admission.
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