Never Events By Richard Philip Kochoa, Md Have you ever heard of the term "Never Events"?

More importantly, have you been to a doctor and something went wrong? Never events are healthcare-related activities that should never happen since they are preventable and inexcusable. Never events are more serious than voting for or against "Team Patay or Team Buhay" candidates. (I wish the proponents of the smear campaign also identified local candidates so both parties can meet head-on.) Never events are quite serious since it has immediate and grave consequence (not just in the afterlife). Never events come in many forms. The most common is what some call "surgical souvenirs". You come in with and ailment, get operated and come home with an extra baggage---such as medical instruments like scissors, blades, or sponges INSIDE your body. Some patients get operated on the wrong limb or the wrong kidney removed. Make no mistake, never events are not limited to developing countries. It happens even in the most advanced countries like the United States. In the April 2013 issue of the journal Surgery, the John Hopkins University School of Medicine in Maryland reported that "a surgeon in the US leaves a foreign object such as sponge or towel inside a patient's body after an operation 39 times a week, performs the wrong procedure on a patient 20 times a week and operates on the wrong body site 20 times a week." That is a total of around 80 never events every week for surgeons in the United States. This report was based on the National Practitioners Data Bank of malpractice judgments and out-of-court settlements. They also noted that an estimated 4044 never-events happen in the US every year. Never-events can occur locally. One private hospital in Negros Occidental reportedly closed for several years because a surgeon left an instrument in the patient's abdomen. In recent years, the same hospital had a faulty intravenous needle. When the nurse removed the set, the plastic catheter was left in the patient's vein. The hospital tried its best to find it to no avail. This incident was brushed off as perhaps a non-event (in other words, they doubted the patient's claim assured her that it never happened). Unfortunately, the patient did not take their word for it and went to a prestigious hospital in Manila. Several scans were done until the missing part was found just a few inches close to the chambers of the heart! I wonder what happened next since the hospital was not sued. There are many non-events that the public should be vigilant of. If many of the lawyers in the country spend their time brushing up on medical jurisprudence instead of running for public office, they would actually get rich faster and legitimately. Also, they get the reward of sleeping with their conscience unperturbed.