Your Excellency President Berset,
Your Excellency, Vice-President Chiwenga,
Excellencies, Ministers of Health, Heads of Delegation,
Ambassador Kronig,
Dr Lévy,
Sir Liam Donaldson,
Dear colleagues and friends,
Bonjour. A very good morning to you all.
Maybe I will start from Syria, joining His Excellency, the President. The situation in Türkiye and Syria, as you know, is heart-breaking. I came back from Syria, where we drove from Aleppo all the way to Damascus, about five hours drive, and town after town, is destroyed. I have never seen in my life that level of destruction in any country. And not only the destruction due to the 12 years of war, and then on top of that there is economic meltdown, then there is the COVID that everybody shares, there is drought, and now the earthquake as if all of these are not enough. So, it was a very sad trip for me. But just to remind all of us that they need our support.
It gives me great pleasure to be here with my friend, President Berset, and I would like to thank Switzerland for its global leadership and commitment to patient safety.
The concept of patient safety is as old as medicine itself, with Hippocrates' dictum, ‘First do no harm’.
Unfortunately, we still have much work to do.
There is still a huge burden of harm in health care, affecting millions of people every year.
In fact, unsafe care has become one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality globally.
This is a problem for all countries, but it is particularly acute in resource-constrained settings.
Safety lapses cause 2.6 million deaths each year in hospitals in low- and middle- income countries alone.
It is estimated that more than half of these cases of patient harm are preventable.
Unsafe care not only takes a huge toll on patients, their families and communities, it also leads to a loss of trust in health systems.
The OECD estimates the social cost of patient harm at more than US$ 1 trillion per year. Really staggering.
But as we all know, patient safety is much more than simply having a set of rules.
It means changing workplace culture, implementing processes to reduce errors, building the competencies of health workers, and ensuring a safe working environment.
Some or all of these are often neglected, or sometimes, met with fierce resistance.
The most famous case of that, of course, is 19th century patient safety pioneer Ignaz Semmelweis, who was mocked by the medical establishment for suggesting that health workers should wash their hands.
Science and history have vindicated Dr Semmelweis, but even today, more than 150 years later, more than half of health facilities still lack basic hygiene services.
Far too much preventable harm also results from the misuse of medication, which affects one in 20 patients globally, according to recent estimates. Many of these errors are life-threatening.
These examples and so many others illustrate why taking a systems approach to addressing patient harm is essential.
And yet so often when patients are harmed, the blame falls on individuals, including health and care workers, and even patients and their families.
To transform patient safety, we must embrace a culture of safety where we report openly, learn from our mistakes and continually improve our systems.
It is also critical to engage with patients and families so they can play an active role in their own care.
That’s why I am pleased to announce that the theme for this year's World Patient Safety Day is, “Engaging Patients for Patient Safety”.
On the 17th of September, please join us in elevating the voice of patients, and in painting the world orange to raise awareness for patient safety everywhere.
World Patient Safety Day was established by the World Health Assembly in 2019.
Two year later, in 2021, the Assembly adopted the first Global Patient Safety Action Plan, which provides a 10-year roadmap and a comprehensive framework of action for reducing avoidable harm due to unsafe care.
At this year’s World Health Assembly, we will report on progress in implementing the Action Plan.
Using a Member State patient safety survey, we are preparing the first Global Patient Safety Report, which will include case studies and best practice examples from around the world.
The Action Plan is supported by WHO’s Global Patient Safety Challenges, which advocate for systemic improvements on critical themes, such as infection prevention and control, safe surgery, and medication safety.
WHO’s Global Patient Safety Network and Patients for Patient Safety Network have also played an important role in framing strategies and advocating for patient safety globally.
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the critical importance of patient safety.
Last year, WHO collaborated with the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health on a rapid review of the implications of the pandemic for patient safety.
The review found that the pandemic increased risks and harm to patients due to safety gaps, the interruption of essential health services, and a failure to provide timely diagnosis and treatment.
Many of these issues were preventable.
The review emphasizes that patient safety is critical to building resilient systems for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.
WHO is currently developing recommendations for protecting patient safety during emergencies.
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Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends,
Patient safety is a journey, not a destination.
Different countries are at different points along the road. But no system is perfect.
All countries can learn from each other; all countries can improve; all countries can move further along the road.
Let me leave you with five areas in which all countries, at all income levels, can make improvements to make care safer.
First, we urge all countries to invest in patient safety as part of their commitment to universal health coverage and health security.
Second, we urge all countries to strengthen their systems for reporting and learning from medical errors.
That means clear policies and an open culture that allows people to report adverse events, without fear of retribution.
Third, we urge all countries to strengthen the capacities of their health workforce, so every health worker knows the best practices for keeping patients and themselves safe.
That means providing health workers with the education, the training, the decent pay, the equipment and the conditions to enable them to provide the highest quality care.
Fourth, we urge all countries to strengthen their data systems for tracking what is working and what is not, so that they can learn and make adjustments continuously.
And fifth, we urge all countries to engage patients and their families as active participants in their own care, not passive recipients.
Thank you all for your continuing commitment to the patient safety journey.
WHO remains totally committed to walking with you every step of the way, to make care as safe as it can be for all people, in all countries.
Because if it’s not safe, it’s not care.
One last thing, this year is WHO’s 75th anniversary, April 7. We will celebrate WHO’s anniversary from April 7, 2023 to April 7, 2024. So, I would like to use this opportunity to ask you all, Ministers and Heads of Delegation and others here, to ask you all to celebrate WHO’s anniversary in your own way.
I thank you so much and wish you all the best.