Ensuring patient safety is key in reducing the overall cost of healthcare, Public Health PS Mary Muthoni has said.
Muthoni said patient safety remains an indispensable pillar in the country’s pursuit of delivering quality care.
She said preventing errors, complications, and adverse events, not only protects patients but also optimises the utilisation of healthcare resources.
“Preventing infections and errors in healthcare settings helps limit the spread of diseases, contributes to community well-being, and supports broader public health goals,” Muthoni said on Friday.
This comes even as the World Health Organisation warned that at least three million patients die globally every year as a result of harm incurred during care.
Statistics from the WHO indicate that around one in every 10 patients is harmed during health care.
The situation is worse in low-to-middle-income countries, where as many as four in 100 people die from unsafe care; more than 50 per cent of harm to patients is preventable.
The PS has acknowledged that most of the risks to patients' safety result from either diagnostic errors or medical errors.
Most of them stem from various factors within the healthcare system including lack of standardisation, healthcare provider fatigue and burnout, inadequate training, workplace pressures and technological issues.
To solve the problems, the ministry has recently posted 4,129 interns including 325 medical officers, 469 pharmacists, 25 dental officers, 506 Clinical Officers (BSc), 1,930 Clinical Officers (Diploma) and 874 in nursing (Degree) to ease the workload in our hospitals.
The Ministry of Health has prioritised the provision of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) to shift from curative to preventive and promotive healthcare.
These are anchored in the four pillars of human resource for health, healthcare financing, commodity security and digital health.
“It is against this that we are embarking on key activities including proper training of the 100,000 Community Health Promoters who will play a vital role in conducting household visits to provide basic healthcare services to our citizens,” the PS said.
In addition, the ministry is focusing on digitising information systems to improve data access, management and use.
