By Blessing Otobong-Gabriel
In order to improve the health of every Nigerian, Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare has launched National Patient Safety and Care Quality Policy and Implementation Strategy 2024, NPCQPIT, to ensure quality healthcare service delivery in Nigeria.
Permanent secretary of the ministry, Daju Kachollom, who represented the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Professor Muhammad Ali Pate, said during the occasion marking 2024 World Patient Safety Day in Abuja that it was imperative to ensure no harm was done to patients who seek healthcare services in our facilities.
Pate said Nogeria must get it right to make it safe, adding that the World Patient Safety Day was an opportunity to raise public awareness and foster collaboration between patients, health workers, policymakers and health care leaders to improve patient safety.
Also speaking, the director of Hospital Services, Federal Ministry of Health, Dr. Jimoh Salaudeen said this year’s theme was ‘Improving diagnosis for patient safety’ with the slogan, ‘Get it right, make it safe!’ highlighting the critical importance of correct and timely diagnosis in ensuring patient safety and improving health outcomes, he said diagnosis identifies a patient’s health problem, and is key to accessing the care and treatment they need.
He explained that a diagnostic error is the failure to establish a correct and timely explanation of a patient’s health problem, which can include delayed, incorrect, or missed diagnoses, or a failure to communicate that explanation to the patient, hence diagnostic safety could be significantly improved by addressing the systems-based issues and cognitive factors that can lead to diagnostic errors.
He therefore expressed optimism that the launching of the first patient Safety and Care Quality Policy & Implementation Strategy was a significant milestone in the efforts to improve the quality of healthcare services in Nigeria as this prominence to diagnostic safety in patient safety policy and clinical practice at all levels of health care, aligned with the Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021–2030.
In the same vein, the deputy vice chancellor of Academics and co-chair for the development of Nigeria’s safety policy, Prof. Stephen Abah said this initiative was a significant step towards improving Nigeria’s healthcare system.
He informed, Patient Safety minimise harm and ensure suitable medications and procedures, Implement robust measures to prevent infections, establish simple, pilot-style checklists for every procedure amd training by Integrating patient safety into medical curricula, starting from 200 level.
