An investigation is underway after revelations almost 50,000 X-rays taken at public hospitals on the Gold Coast have not been properly checked leaving patients at risk.  The investigation will examine what Minister for Health Lawrence SPRINGBORG has called a ‘long-running failure of a system designed to pick up undiagnosed medical conditions’.

Minister Springborg ordered the investigation into the lapse, which involves 48,000 X-rays taken since 2013.

Yes, you read it right… 48,000, repeat 48,000!

He said he had been advised the problem was isolated to the Gold Coast, but the inquiry would look at checking procedures across the state.

External checks would be carried out, at least in the short to medium term, to make sure all X-rays taken at the Gold Coast University Hospital and Robina Hospital were properly checked, he said.

“Delays and backlogs in this system cannot be permitted,” he said in a statement.

The Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service Board says it is aware of at least two patients who suffered adverse effects as a result of the failure.

It said it was aware there were problems with the checking procedures, but the extent of it did not become clear until late last week.

Why not?

About 22,000 X-rays have been earmarked for priority review.

The board’s patient safety spokeswoman Colette McCOOL said board members were aware there was a problem with the process, and had ordered a report on the matter.  But the scope of the problem, and the huge backlog of tests not properly checked, had come as a shock.

“We’d been advised that it was an issue over the last six months or so, but the magnitude of it wasn’t realised until last Thursday,” she told reporters on Monday, 14 July 2014.

The board’s chief executive Ron CALVERT said previous efforts to fix the problem had failed.  “Our efforts to remedy the situation have stumbled. We make mistakes. It happens,” he said.

“Our job is to make sure when we make these mistakes we are open and transparent about it and we learn from it and improve.”

They don’t.  Too many mistakes Gold Coast Hospital!  Robina, you’re no better!  The bungling at the old hospital has been transferred to the new.

Mr CALVERT said any patients found to have secondary problems would be contacted.

Don’t bet on it!

In Queensland, all X-rays are required to be double checked by radiologists.

Who was checking the double-checkers then?

Where did these radiologists get their degrees, if at all?

Medical imaging companies have been accused of exploiting a Medicare loophole to charge patients and the government more for services.

The ABC has learned some companies are making vulnerable patients who need multiple scans return over a number of days.

The practice helps them avoid a Medicare billing regime where set fees are reduced for second and subsequent scans conducted on the same day.  Making patients return can save imaging practices as little as $5 or as much as half the standard cost of a scan.

It comes after the ABC revealed earlier in the year specialist doctors could be raking in millions of dollars by forcing patients back to their GP for a fresh referral each year.

But the imaging industry said sometimes there were legitimate medical or logistical reasons to ask patients to return on different days.  Charging at the higher rate also gave them more capacity to bulk-bill patients.  However, in cases where practices do not bulk-bill, it results in the maximum gap payment for patients.

Consumer advocates said asking patients to make unnecessary repeated visits was a waste of time and money.

“If it’s not medically relevant … then this could be a significant cost burden on the Australian health system and one that requires review,” Consumer Health Forum chief executive Adam Stankevicius said.

Government spending on imaging has risen more than 40 per cent in the past five years and makes up about 10 per cent of the Medicare budget.  The patient gap charges, the difference between the cost and the Medicare rebate, are also up with the average imaging gap now $88.

Patients billed for cancelled appointments

Medical advocate Lorraine Long says the imaging industry has many poor practices.

The Medical Error Action Group founder has personally been bulk-billed twice for appointments she made but later cancelled.

“There’s obviously a pattern that when you make an appointment they obtain your Medicare number, then they bill Medicare whether you turn up or not,” Ms Long said.

She said she frequently saw evidence of “double-dipping” by medical practices.

In some cases, patients were bulk-billed for clinicians they never saw or billed for visits they never attended.

“I think it’s conniving more than rorting.  Because I’m seeing it right across the board,” Ms Long said.

“I’m not just seeing it in Sydney, I’m seeing it across Australia, and I see a lot of Medicare patient history reports that have that view.”

Patients encouraged to report fraud

A Department of Human Services spokeswoman said the department had compliance activities to address inappropriate practice and fraudulent activity.

“Any changes to Medicare would need to be considered by the Department of Health,” she said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-10/medical-imaging-companies-accused-of-exploiting-loophole/5588212

A nurse who allegedly murdered 2 elderly patients and assaulted a third after two of them made complaints against her at a northern NSW nursing home, police allege.

WASHINGTON DC:  A newly issued report by a U.S. senator found that more than 1,000 U.S. veterans likely died in the past decade because of malpractice in regard to a lack of proper and timely care from the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) medical centers.

DOCUMENTS relating to Michael SCHUMACHER have been stolen, the Formula One star’s management says, with the thieves claiming them to be medical records about his coma from a devastating ski crash in December 2013.

“For several days stolen documents and data are being offered for sale.  The offerer claims them to be the medical file of Michael SCHUMACHER,” the German’s spokeswoman Sabine KEHM said in a statement on Monday.

“We cannot judge if these documents are authentic.  However, the documents are clearly stolen. The theft has been reported. The authorities are involved,” she added.

KEHM warned against the purchase or the publication of the data, stressing: “The contents of any medical files are totally private and confidential and must not be made available to the public.”

She vowed to sue “against any publication of the content or reference to the medical file”.

SCHUMACHER was transferred from a French hospital to a facility in Switzerland earlier this month after emerging from a coma.  He had been treated since 29 December in the French Alpine city of Grenoble after he slammed his head against a rock while skiing with his son and friends.

A police source later told AFP that the Grenoble hospital had last week filed a lawsuit regarding the theft of the data.

The 45-year-old was transferred to a hospital in the Swiss city of Lausanne where he will be undergoing further treatment.

Source:  AFP

MEAG COMMENT:  This is how sick the world is!  Despicable act, and for what purpose?

THE NSW agency responsible for investigating health complaints has failed the Hunter, a long-time campaigner for patients’ rights says.

The Health Care Complaints Commission’s (HCCC) projection of a record 5,185 complaints by the end of the year, along with a 20per cent reduction in referrals for disciplinary action or prosecution, showed it was not acting as the state’s health watchdog, Medical Error Action Group spokeswoman Lorraine LONG said.

The number of complaints from the Hunter about health providers was rising in line with the overall complaint increase, but the number of complaints about the HCCC’s handling of complaints was also rising, Miss LONG said.

‘‘We’ve got this commission set up to do this job, but they’re not doing the job,’’ she said.

‘‘If my organisation can uncover serious failings within the system with no funding, and if we can run a group on the smell of an oily rag, I don’t understand why the HCCC can’t take action in a more timely fashion.’’

Miss LONG’s comments come after recent budget figures showing the HCCC was dealing with a 25 per cent increase in complaints from 2011, when it was forced to make public that funding problems had significantly curbed the number and quality of investigations.

The comments also come after publicity about the case of neurosurgeon Suresh NAIR, who was able to operate on patients at Nepean Hospital for five years despite complaints to the commission about his drug taking. NAIR was banned from practising in 2010 after he was charged and later convicted of offences relating to the drug deaths of two sex workers.

In its 2012-13 report, the HCCC said the majority of complaints about medical practitioners were either discontinued (57.2per cent) or referred to the Medical Council of NSW (20.4per cent).

‘‘To manage the high work load while meeting the statutory requirement of assessing complaints within 60 days, the commission continued the practice of assessing complaints that contain sufficient information without making any further inquiries,’’ the annual report noted.

Complaints about doctors included competence, illegal practices, sexual misconduct and inappropriate disclosure of patient information.

SYDNEY:  The Court of Criminal Appeal has heard former gynaecologist Graeme Stephen REEVES, who mutilated a woman’s genitals, should not go back to jail because of his poor health.

Graeme REEVES was released on parole in 2013 after serving part of his two-and-a-half-year jail sentence for removing a patient’s clitoris without her consent during an operation to take out a pre-cancerous lesion.

He was found guilty in 2011 of maliciously inflicting grievous bodily harm on Carolyn DeWaegeneire at Bega on the New South Wales south coast.

In December last year, the High Court overturned a decision to increase his jail time by 18 months because of his deteriorating health.

It sent the case back to the Court Of Criminal Appeal to reconsider the sentence.

His lawyer has told the Court of Criminal Appeal that REEVES needs to be on dialysis and cannot get the proper treatment he needs in jail.  The court has reserved its decision until a later date.

REEVES sat in court just metres away from Mrs DeWaegeneire.

Outside court she said she hoped his sentence was increased.

“The legal system is geared towards the perpetrators,” she said.

Commenting on reports that more than 60 other charges were dropped against Reeves last year due to insufficient evidence, she said:  “It’s appalling… it’s a slap in the face for police who investigated him.”

Lorraine LONG, an advocate for REEVES’ patients, said many of the women who complained about him have had trouble getting legal representation.

“But he has had a dream run with Legal Aid”, she said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-23/graeme-reeves/5473612
Former gynaecologist Graeme Reeves needs dialysis, too sick to return to jail, appeal court told
By court reporter Jamelle Wells

ABC Radio Updated Sat 24 May 2014, 06:25am AEST

MEAG COMMENT:  Butcher Reeves’ health a higher priority than the victims he butchered!  He’s got ‘the system’ attending to his every whim, whereas his victims fought for years to be heard and to this day have still not listened to.  Shame New South Wales, shame.  

Sixty patients died in ­Victorian hospitals in 2011-2013 due to mistakes, while a catalogue of 75 other incidents reveals that tubes and surgical packs were left in patients after surgery.

In one case a patient died after surgeons operated on the wrong person or wrong body part, while five died following medication errors, the Victoria Health Department’s latest logs of ­mistakes show.

Another 13 patients escaped death after having instruments left in their bodies after surgery, however 5 of them lost the function in parts of their body at least temporarily due to the errors.

After two weeks of pain following elective surgery a patient was found to have a plastic draining tube left in their lower abdomen and had to undergo more surgery to remove it.  Another suffered an infection when a surgical pack was left inside them after an operation to remove a tumour.

The Department on Wednesday 21/5/14 issued death statistics for 2011-12 and 2012-13, but it ­refuses to identify which ­hospitals are responsible.

“Regrettably, adverse events and clinical errors do occur from time to time, with negative impacts for patients, their families and carers, and staff”, the report states.

“The department seeks to learn from these events to prevent them from happening again.  To this end, all adverse events are thoroughly investigated to determine the systems and processes that caused them, and to develop and implement preventive strategies.”

In 2011-12, 33 people died in Victoria’s hospitals for reasons that had nothing to do with their admittance condition.  Another 27 died in 2012-13.  17 committed suicide while in inpatient units.

Among other incidents:

• Nurses crushed a patient’s antibiotics and administered them into the arm via a catheter, rather than give them as the prescribed oral pills.  The patient deteriorated and died;
• A renal failure patient later died after being moved from an Emergency Department to a ward because no intensive care bed was available.  Critical information was not passed on;
• Despite being ordered not to feed sandwiches to a patient with a history of choking on small food, staff did so.  The ­patient choked and died;
• A patient died a day after falling from a bed and being found alone and unresponsive.
• Another patient lost the full function of their legs after a medical team missed for a fortnight a build-up of fluid compressing their spinal cord.

MEAG comment:  60 patients only?  And the rest!  Why aren’t the hospitals being named?  Victorians have a right to know which of their hospitals are error-prone.

The adage that cleanliness is next to godliness may not ring true in the corridors and operating theatres of Australian hospitals.

Only 66% of hospital doctors comply with appropriate hand hygiene, compared to 83% of nurses.

Not only are hospital doctors less likely than nurses to comply with the World Health Organization’s “Five Moments for Hand Hygiene”, but the more senior the doctor the less likely he or she is to wash their hands before examining a patient, local research found.  The study analysed data from Hand Hygiene Australia along with hand hygiene rates reported on the MyHospitals website.

Despite showing improvements since the National Hand Hygiene Initiative began in 2009, it found only 66% of hospital doctors comply with appropriate hand hygiene (up from 46%) compared to 83% of nurses (up from 68%).

A negative correlation was also observed between hand hygiene compliance and the educational status of the doctor.

Apparently doctors are often sceptical of hand-washing guidelines and believe “between patient” hand-washing to be sufficient, ignoring the “inevitability of touching potentially contaminated objects like patient notes, bed curtains, door handles, mobile phones and computer keyboards between patients!

No wonder infections are rampant.

Source:  MJA 2014; 200(9):508-09, 534-37