Healthcare Staff and family key to ensure patient safety

Uasin Gishu,

Wednesday, September 13, 2023

KNA by Ekuwam Sylvester

Residents of Uasin Gishu County have been urged to cooperate with healthcare staff by providing full information and family history of the patients to ensure patient safety.

Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dr. Wilson Arwasa said that patient safety can only be ensured through proper communication between the health care staff and the patient’s family.

Arwasa was speaking when he flagged off patient safety teams to counties to sensitize the public about patient safety that is family centered as the world prepares to mark this year’s Patients Safety Day 2023 on September 17th with the theme "Engaging patients for patient safety".

“When it comes to checking of patients, we normally tell our healthcare staff to check head to toe for the purpose of patient safety, thorough investigations in the lab, radiology and any other including social investigations,” he said.

Arwasa said they have to check on paediatric patients at least twice a day to make sure patients are safe.

“We don’t only focus on technical treatment, we also check where the patient is admitted, are they safe, can they fall off the bed, can they fall off the roof and so forth,” he added.

He underscored that patient safety is a key thing and all the drugs that are given to patients should be checked and counter-checked to be sure of the name of the drug, the dose, frequency and rules of administration.

The CEO said additionally, the medics have to check on how the patient responds to the treatment that they are giving and when doing surgery, they have to be sure they are doing surgery on the right patients, the right surgery and to the right side of the body to avoid any unnecessary complications.

Arwasa said that as the largest referral facility in the region as part of the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA) of the government, MTRH supports the counties also to make sure that patients are safe in terms of environment cleanliness of hospitals, lavatory facilities, safety of all the equipment used like the wheelchairs and others including the infection prevention and control.

He appealed to counties and other hospitals in Kenya and beyond to ensure safety of the patients’ and equipment used.

“We should have safe hospitals that are patient friendly through proper communication and proper evaluation of patients and we should never feel bored as health care workers when engaging with the families,” he said.

Arwasa noted that families also have a role to play in taking care of patients, they have a role in the sense that they give healthcare staff full information, to be with the patient even as the nursing and health care staff are with the patients.

He added that the family has to be there also to walk the journey with them and to be updated on a daily basis on how their relative who is admitted or who is in the clinic is doing.

 “We request the families to give us full information, to walk the journey with us and should not just abandon patients in hospitals,” he noted.

The CEO emphasized that the communication must be family centered not patient centered so that all families are aware what the diagnosis is, treatment, prognosis what is the way forward, what is the follow up.

Courtesy; KNA