Special Course May Help Cut Deaths Due To Medical Errors

A two-day module is mandatory for surgical trainees in the U.S. and the U.K.

With nearly 50,00,000 Indians dying due to medical negligence every year, experts claim that a specialised course for doctors and hospital staff focusing on how a critically ill or injured patient should be handled could bring down the figure by almost 50%.

The Acute Critical Care Course (ACCC), developed in the early 1980s in Europe, has come as a boon for medical institutions abroad by reducing the death rate of patients by nearly 10%, even in serious health complications including sepsis, said Ajay Sharma, a transplant specialist and consultant at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital in the U.K.

The two­ day course has become mandatory for surgical trainees both in the U.S. and the U.K., which annually lose over four lakh and 98,000 patients, respectively, due to medical errors, Mr. Sharma said.

A study by the Harvard University last year showed that nearly 50 lakh deaths occur in India annually due to medical errors triggered by lack of practical knowledge among the doctors and nurses to handle patients when brought to the hospital.