Safety in surgery drive kicks off

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippine College of Surgeons (PCS) convened Friday night the Philippine Alliance on Patient Safety in Surgery, kicking off efforts to instill the culture of safe surgery in all Philippine hospitals.

The alliance is a spin off of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) “World Alliance for Patient Safety” which is intended to minimize deaths and complications resulting from operations.

During its 72nd Founding Anniversary celebration Friday night, the PCS was tapped as the lead agency in the Philippines for this global effort through an agreement with the WHO, the Department of Health (DOH) and the Philippine Health Insurance Corp.

PCS president Dr. Armand Crisostomo said this accord signals the start of PCS’s efforts to “save lives through safe surgery.”

Crisostomo said that the alliance would begin the project with the distribution of a checklist to all hospitals, clinics and other healthcare facilities across the country to remind them of what they should check before, during and after surgery.

He added that with the PCS-DOH agreement, these facilities now have “marching orders” to display the checklist in their operating rooms.

“We know it will take time before we can really achieve our goals. But by starting now, we hope to instill the culture of safe surgery in all operating rooms,” the doctor told The STAR.

The PCS had formulated the one-page three-phase checklist after the Philippines was chosen by the WHO as one of its eight evaluation sites for its global safe surgery program launched in Washington D.C. last June 25.

The campaign is intended to “protect patients from harm, avoid or reduce error and promote safe operative practices, avoid inducing allergy or adverse drug reaction for which the patient is known to be at significant risk, consistently use methods known to minimize the risk for surgical site infection and prevent inadvertent retention of instruments or sponges in surgical wounds,” among others.

Worldwide, it is estimated that some 230 million major surgeries are being performed annually and most of them are related to OB-gynecology cases.

Crisostomo said the alliance would also be conducting educational and training programs to fortify efforts to save patients from surgery-related deaths and complications.

The alliance is composed of various organizations of doctors, nurses and hospital owners.