Lack of research, education and staff motivation have led to gaps in patient safety across the entire GCC, experts said yesterday.
The safety of patients has only recently become a topic of concern, said professor Tawfik Khoja, the director general of the Executive Board of the GCC Health Ministers’ Council, who was speaking at a conference to launch the 2013 Patient Safety and Quality Congress Middle East.
“The movement for patient safety is on the agenda for GCC leaders as well as the senior-level management in the ministries of health and health institutions,” prof Khoja said.
According to the World Health Organisation, patient safety is “the absence of preventable harm to a patient during the process of health care”.
“Patient safety is becoming a community – a national – concern,” prof Khoja added.
And despite efforts to improve patient safety, progress has been slow, he said. “I think with all this movement, still, patient safety has a long way to go and it needs more commitment from all levels.”
If the situation is to improve, change must begin on the ground, with healthcare workers needing an incentive to be able to focus on improving safety, said Dr Hamed Ibrahim, the managing director of Johns Hopkins Medicine International, in Baltimore, US.
Other issues arise in GCC countries when dealing with cultural norms, said the doctors.
“Our culture doesn’t really understand and value ... research,” Dr Ibrahim said, adding that patience was key to development. “We are a culture used to wanting to yield our investment yesterday.”
In an attempt to improve patient safety, the Health Authority–Abu Dhabi (Haad) has referred to the US Institute of Medicine’s code: safety; effectiveness; having a patient-centred approach; improve time in which a patient is seen; improve efficiency and; equity – in that the level of care remains the same regardless of a patient’s gender, ethnicity, geographic location and socioeconomic status.
Instead of asking questions, patients can make assumptions, leading to altered perceptions.
Dr Sedra Al Mansouri, the acting director of Haad’s health system compliance division, said: “Patients do not talk about health care. The problem? Expectations are not matching reality. Are we safe in delivering health care? Are hospitals safe?”
Medical error is also an area for improvement, said the doctor. Common errors include medication and blood labelling mistakes.
Accreditation is one way healthcare facilities can highlight gaps that need to be worked on, said the doctor.
With dozens of hospitals in the UAE accredited by the Joint Commission International Accreditation, a division of the American-based Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organisation, the country is well ahead of others in the region, said Dr Al Mansouri.
By trying to attain accreditation, hospitals put the weaknesses in their system under the spotlight.
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How much sugar is in chocolate Easter eggs?
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- The 190g Maltesers Teasers egg contains 58g of sugar per 100g for the egg and 19.6g of sugar in each of the two Teasers bars that come with it
- The 188g Smarties egg has 113g of sugar per egg and 22.8g in the tube of Smarties it contains
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- Choose cars with GCC specifications
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- If you are planning to sell the car soon, buy one with a good resale value. The two most popular cars in the UAE are black or white in colour and other colours are harder to sell
Tarek Kabrit, chief executive of Seez, and Imad Hammad, chief executive and co-founder of CarSwitch.com
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
