By CHIOMA OBINNA
PATIENT safety has been mooted as an aspect of healthcare delivery that is non-negotiable as far as welfare of Nigerians are concerned. As a result, healthcare providers have been enjoined to make it top priority in their practice.

President/Founder of International Conference of the Society for Quality in Healthcare in Nigeria, SQHN, Prof. Ade Elebute, who observed that most times, standards were too low statedthat dangerous practices are bound in healthcare and lack of security is also a major barrier in service delivery.

Patient safety according the World Health Organisation, WHO, is the absence of avoidable harm to patients during the process of healthcare and reduction of risk of unnecessary harm associated with health care to an acceptable minimum.

He spoke during the 3rd International Conference of the SQHN with the theme; “Safety, Standards and Customer Service”, was to emphasize the importance of Safety as an essential dimension of quality in healthcare.

In her lecture tagged; “WHO Patient Safety Programme”, WHO’s Dr. Carmen Audera-Lopez identified risks to patient safety to include aspects such as poor test follow-up, misdiagnosis, poor safety culture, inadequate use of protocols, etc.

On patient safety situation in Africa, she noted that most countries lack national policies and plans on safe and quality health-care practices, inappropriate funding of healthcare systems and unavailability of critical support systems, tools and guidelines, weak health care delivery systems, poor management capacity and under-equipped health facilities, overuse, underuse or misuse of medicines, lack of adequate infection control within healthcare facilities and unsafe surgical care.

“ The WHO Patient Safety Programme is proposing simple solutions that make a change such as hand washing, checklists, protocols, standard procedures, local solutions and change in patient safety culture through communication, leadership, learning from errors and commitment.

Executive Secretary, National Health Insurance Scheme, NHIS, Dr. Dogo Mohammed, in his lecture entitled; “Importance of Standards in a Demand Driven Health Insurance System”, observed that standards are not only desirable but important in the health insurance system which is demand driven.

Dogo Mohammed stressed that quality of care cannot be measured unless there was something to measure with, and this he said, is known as standards.