The frequency with which patients are injured in Irish hospitals is very high. The current estimate is of 160,000 per year.
Who knows the exact figure? Presumably, the Health Service Executive does. If it does, why is that information not made public? If it does not know, why does it not know?
Let us assume that the HSE is a competent body and infused with goodwill towards the patients. Would it not be a good idea to try to eliminate the causes of accidents or adverse events? If it is such a body, should it not direct all the health care institutions under its control to investigate adverse events to analyse how an accident or adverse event occurred, to prevent its repetition? If such an analysis took place would the findings not be required to be disseminated to the staff? Otherwise how would the staff know what to look out for to avoid repetition?
Now, in the light of the foregoing, is there a system in Irish hospitals of recording and reviewing adverse events? It appears there is not. The evidence for this is a) practical experience of looking for records and documents and discovering an absence of such notes recording relevant events and b) we are forced, at a macro level, to guess or estimate the level of adverse event occurrence as evidenced by public conference statements.
Admittedly, the hospital could omit written records and could call a conference of staff for the second Friday after the event to discover what went wrong and resolve, collectively, to try to avoid a repeat of the event in the future. No notes would be kept of this conference.
Why did the Supreme Court not canvass such possibilities in Doherty v Reynolds and St. James’s Hospital [2004] IESC? In that case the Plaintiff had heartburn. Following his operation to deal with his complaint he discovered quickly that he had an injured shoulder. Before he left the hospital he complained of severe pain in his shoulder to, sequentially, a nurse and two doctors (one of whom was the anaesthetist in the operation). He was sent home. His GP, on the same evidence, referred him to Beaumont hospital, which, on the same evidence, admitted him for treatment.
The Supreme Court although remarking:-
“I have not the slightest doubt that the trial judge in this case was entitled to accept the evidence of the plaintiff, his wife and Father Flanagan as to the complaints of severe pain and limitation of movement in his right shoulder and arm that the plaintiff was making in the immediate aftermath of the operation. The absence of any records of these complaints by any of the hospital staff is certainly remarkable and reflects, at best from their point of view, a singularly inadequate system of record keeping. It is clear that the plaintiff, who had gone into hospital for an operation intended to deal with a condition of heartburn and acid reflux but was otherwise in normal health, came out suffering from a painful and disabling condition in his right shoulder and arm which did not respond to any treatment until some six years later: so much, at least, is not in dispute in this difficult case.”
– went on to reverse the High court verdict in favour of the Plaintiff and order a new trial because it disagreed with the High court finding that the principle of “Res Ipsa Loquitur” applied in the case.
The hospital staff gave evidence of their usual practices. The evidence was that such practices were safe. They, generally, said they had no recollection of the individual events of the Plaintiff’s operation. This was unsurprising; they were giving evidence seven years after the event. However, there was an exception; one nurse did have an individual recollection. Beaumont hospital had raised a query with the surgeon, who in turn, raised a query with one of the nurses. This happened in the month following the operation. Thus, the High court had evidence that the Plaintiff had complained of his injury while still in St. James’s hospital and Beaumont hospital had enquired, in its investigations of the Plaintiff’s injury.
Why was there no investigation by St. James‘s hospital following these complaints? In fact there was; it appears, on the evidence, it was confined to a conversation between a surgeon and a nurse.
Bearing in mind that the Supreme court thought that the hospital had “…a singularly inadequate system of record keeping”, it was remarkably indulgent in accepting that evidence from staff, of what they would ordinarily do, as opposed to what actually happened, was a sufficient response to the Plaintiff’s evidence. It was reasonably clear that the High court judge believed that the hospital staff were culpably ignorant and that the failure of the hospital to call ALL its witnesses was to be deprecated (and justified his implied conclusion of culpable ignorance).
On a global view, the HSE, it would appear, supported by the Supreme court, thinks ignorance is bliss.