'By the time they did anything for her there were worms dropping out of Mrs Adekoya's foot. The whole instep was rotten with just a piece of skin holding it in place. She was alive but her foot smelt like a dead person'



The above scenario could have happened. The patient Mrs Adekoya, sought treatment for in-growing toe nail, but ended up getting a whole leg amputated out of sheer clinical negligence. This should not happen.

“Primum non nocere”  ‘first do no harm’; is the central tenet of contemporary medicine. Whenever we receive medical treatment, we expect and are entitled to receive a certain level of care. Unfortunately not everyone’s experience of healthcare is problem free.

Unfortunately a lot of patients like Mrs Adekoya, may have no where to turn to for help or advise when they have suffered clinical negligence. That is, until now.

PAS is a new service in Nigeria, that aims to prevent clinical negligence, by indirectly encouraging care providers to become more careful in the course of providing care to their service users. When there is a suggestion of Clinical negligence, we will assist the patient to pursue a disclosure, whether in the form of explanations, apologies or as in the case of Mrs Adekoya, a redress.

For more information, follow this link: http://www.bpshealthcare.com/index.php?edata=MzA2MiNtZW51

@beneli
spot on, this cannot be more timely,

sure to get a call from here soon

Beautiful idea!
Sure to tackle all forms of quackery.
I only hope people will take full advantage of it,

reindeer:

Beautiful idea!
Sure to tackle all forms of quackery.
I only hope people will take full advantage of it,

It will take a while for people to acquire the culture of actually demanding of service-providers, the services they have actually paid for. It is going to be even more difficult to demand such services from the already disenchanted Doctors and the so many derelict private and public hospitals that litter the Nigerian landscape. But once a person has paid (or is willing to pay) to be treated, and the doctor accepts (or is willing to accept that treatment) then the Doctor (or the hospital s/he works for) becomes legally bound to offer the right care and treatment.

It's not- and should never be-the patient's fault that the hospitals are poorly funded or that the doctors are inadequately trained.  And as the Doctors have a right to strike when they are not getting what they want from government, patients also have a right not to be victims of clinical negligence.

Our Patient Advocay Services (PAS) empowers the already impoverished patient with accessible means, with which to pursue their rights to respect and better services from Doctors, no matter what the difficulties are that doctors face within the Nigerian Health system.

For the records, I am a Doctor.

Me too Dr beneli,
I know all together such services will improve healthcare delivery.