World Patient Safety Day - 17 September 2020
Health Worker Safety: A Priority For Patient Safety.
A global campaign is being launched by the World Health
Organisation (WHO) on 17 September to highlight and emphasise the importance of
healthcare worker safety. As a pre-requisite for patient safety, WHO want
members and countries to commit to and to take urgent and sustainable action to
recognise that reducing the risk of harm to health workers is essential for
patient safety. In this year of the Nurse and Midwife 2020, it is especially
important to highlight the vital role of nurses and midwives in safe patient
care, wherever in the world they work.
WHO cite that:-
·
134
million adverse events occur each year due to unsafe care in hospitals in low
and middle income countries contributing to 2.6 million deaths annually.
·
15%of
hospital expenses can be attributed to treating patient safety failures in OECD
countries.
·
4 out of
10 patients are harmed in the primary and ambulatory care settings, up to 80%
of harm in these settings can be avoided.
The call to action encourages health workers to be aware
that :
- Your own safety starts with you: Take
care of your physical and psychological health
- Protect your safety and that of the
people you care for
- Ensure you are trained and aware of
infection prevention and control and implement appropriate measures
- Proactively contribute to building and
strengthening a safety culture at work
- Improve your knowledge, skills and
competencies for safety in health care
- Know your rights and responsibilities
and call for a safe work environment
- Always report safety risks, violence,
harassment or threats to the authorities
- Promote and implement innovative
safety practices within your organization
Friends of African
Nursing (and WHO) would encourage healthcare providers to :-
- Create an open, equitable and
transparent safety culture for health workers and patients which allows
the reporting of safety incidents in a timely manner
- Create a supportive, safe working
environment and implement innovative safety practices based on a human
factors and ergonomics approach
- Empower health workers to provide
safe and clean care
- Ensure appropriate training and
guidance in infection prevention and control
- Provide sufficient resources to
improve the safety of working conditions in health care settings
- Engage health workers, patients and
their families in continuous safety improvement practices
- Prioritise and invest in occupational
health and safety to improve patient safety
- Implement activities on promoting
role modelling and mental health to alleviate stress in the workplace
- Ensure that mechanisms for the reward
and motivation of health workers are in place and used appropriately
We, Friends of African
Nursing as a non-governmental organisation support the objectives of World
Patient Safety Day:-
- Raise global awareness about the
importance of health worker safety and its interlinkages with patient
safety
- Engage multiple stakeholders and adopt
multimodal strategies to improve the safety of health workers and patients
- Implement urgent and sustainable
actions by all stakeholders which recognize and invest in the safety of
health workers, as a priority for patient safety
- Provide due recognition of health
workers’ dedication and hard work, particularly amid the current fight
against COVID-19
Kate Woodhead
Friends of African
Nursing
September 2020
