DOCTORS REFORM SOCIETY

Media Release

 

Saturday, 11 November 2006

 

GOVERNMENT SLEEPS AS TEN JUMBO JETS OF PATIENTS CRASH EVERY YEAR

 

"New figures suggesting up to 20% of surgery results in infection should finally kick complacent governments into action," said Dr Tim Woodruff, President, Doctors Reform Society

"In 1996 a report into medical errors in public and private hospitals showed that at least 4,500 people died every year from preventable medical errors," said Dr Woodruff. "That's the equivalent of ten jumbo jets crashing with all lives lost."

 

"The Federal Government's response was to set up a committee with no powers to implement its own recommendations," said Dr Woodruff.

 

"For all the public knows, those appalling figures could be exactly the same today because the Government has done almost nothing to implement the recommendations of its own committee and nothing at all to find out if those figures have changed in the ten years it has been responsible for our health system."

 

"If that many jumbo jets crashed every year in Australia we would have a national crisis," said Dr Woodruff. "If patients die of preventable errors, the Government rolls over and goes to sleep, waiting for the next plane to crash".