More than 70 people have died after serious mistakes in New Zealand public hospitals during the 12 months to June 2008.
A report detailing serious events in New Zealand hospitals revealed 258 patients were involved in medical mistakes and botch-ups nationally which either did, or could have, cost them their lives or caused serious harm.
Of the 258 patients involved, 76 died.
It is the second year the national statistics have been released by the Ministry of Health's quality improvement committee.
Committee chairman Patrick Snedden said during the period from July 2007 to last June, nearly 900,000 people were treated and discharged from NZ hospitals.
Last year's sentinel events report detailed 182 medical mishaps and incidents, including 40 deaths, and the increase in reported incidents was expected because better reporting systems were now in place, he said.
Eighteen serious mistakes reported at Southland Hospital included an infant dying after hospital staff failed to diagnose meningitis and seven patients needing corrective surgery after the wrong lens was inserted during cataract operations.
Three of the events reported involved patient deaths.
Southland Hospital discharges more than 17,000 patients every year.
Southland District Health Board divisional director of surgical services David Tulloch yesterday did not want to discuss details about the incidents.
Details released in the report showed an infant died from meningitis after being discharged from the hospital.
The fatal disease had not been diagnosed, despite clinical assessment and several hours' observation.
A review found suspicion of meningitis would have been reduced because the infant had already been immunised against meningitis B, and fever-reducing medications may have masked clinical signs.
Another patient died following respiratory arrest during supervised alcohol withdrawal.
The third death involved a member of the public who died after tripping in the SDHB grounds and breaking their neck.
Retrieval of the person had been delayed due to confusion about procedure.
The incident was still being investigated, but staff education about procedures had been done.
Mr Tulloch said every event was awful for the patient and their families, and caused deep distress to staff.
"Unfortunately, nothing in medicine is risk-free and incidents do occur - there is always the balance of benefit versus risk."
Nearly half of the 258 incidents across the 21 district health boards involved clinical management mistakes, such as misdiagnosis, delayed treatment or no monitoring.
Falls constituted 23% of the incidents, 8% involved medication errors and 7% involved health staff treating the wrong patient, the wrong site, or doing the wrong procedure.
Mr Snedden said reporting events was voluntary and the aim was to improve safety in hospitals by encouraging transparent reporting of incidents so people could learn from mistakes.
