CHINA: Man wrongly jailed for 11 years for murder, gets state compensation

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BEIJING, China / The People's Daily / Life & Culture / News / May 14, 2010

Zhao Zuohai is pictured at one of his relatives' residence in Zhecheng county of central China's Henan Province, on May 12, 2010. 57-year-old Chinese man Zhao Zuohai who was wrongly jailed for 11 years for murder was compensated 650,000 yuan (96,000 U.S. dollars), authorities said Thursday. The amount includes state compensation and allowances.   
Xinhua/Zhu Xiang [rc]

Copyright by People's Daily Online

USA: Pensioner has no regrets - He made the worst business move of all time

. LONDON, England / The Telegraph / Technology / April 23, 2010 He gave up £15bn slice of Apple: It could rank among the worst business moves of all time. In 1976, Ronald Wayne decided to pull out of his friends' computer company after two weeks, fearing he could be saddled with debts if it failed. By Nick Allen in Los Angeles After drawing up the original contract for the firm and designing its logo, he withdrew his 10 per cent stake and walked away with $1,500 (£975). Speaking from his home in a remote desert town near Death Valley, Nevada, the little known "third founder" of electronics giant Apple said he has no regrets. Mr Wayne, 75, relinquished a stake that would now be worth around £15 billion and lives on a state pension and deals in old stamps and coins to supplement his income. Meanwhile, his two former friends Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, joined the ranks of the super-rich. Jobs is still chairman and CEO with a personal fortune estimated at more than £3 billion. He met Jobs while working at Atari in California before drawing up an agreement which gave Jobs and Wozniak each a 45 per cent each of their new Apple computer venture. Ron Wayne (right) with Steve Wozniack (centre) Mr Wayne said Jobs asked him to take 10 per cent so he could be a "tiebreaker" between the other two if necessary. He was chosen because they believed he would be "balanced and reasonable". But within two weeks Mr Wayne wanted out and decided to give up his share. His anxieties stemmed from a traumatic previous business experience building and selling slot machines in Nevada. That had failed and he had spent two years paying back his creditors in full. Mr Wayne told The Daily Telegraph: "I felt the enterprise would be successful but at the same time there could be bumps along the way and I just couldn't risk it. "I had already had a rather unfortunate business experience before. I was getting too old and those two were whirlwinds. It was like having a tiger by the tail and I couldn't keep up with these guys. "Would I like to be rich? Everybody would like to be rich but I couldn't keep up the pace. I would have been wealthy, but I would have been the richest man in the cemetery." Mr Wayne said that a few weeks into the venture Jobs got an order to supply 100 computers and borrowed $15,000 (£10,000) to get the materials, and he got nervous. A few months after formally separating himself from the company he received a check in the post for $1,500 (£975) and a request to formally sign away his share. After bowing out gracefully he continued to work as an engineer and holds a dozen engineering patents. He said: "I have always been a day late and a dollar short. I would be delighted if things I worked on had been successful. But if you had everything we wanted in our palms we would be absolutely content for about 10 minutes. "For my whole life I have never been rich, but I have never been hungry. I live with what I have got. Perhaps I'm rationalising, but I'm quite content. "I will be a footnote in history because I happened to have known someone." During his brief time involved with the Apple enterprise Mr Wayne created its first logo, featuring Isaac Newton under an apple tree. He said: "It was a terrible logo for the modern world and I knew that at the time." He now lives in a $150,000 home and drives a Chevy Malibu with 80,000 miles on the clock. Ironically, he didn't get his first computer until 1996 and has never owned an Apple computer. He has remained in intermittent touch with his two former partners and last saw Jobs five years ago. Mr Wayne said: "He had a computer show and invited me. He paid the plane fare and I was VIP, front row. We met Woz and the three of us had lunch. I'm pleased for them. Whatever Steve Jobs has achieved he deserves it. He worked hard for it." [rc] © Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2010

AUSTRIA: Second case of allergy-triggering painkiller treatment

. SALZBURG, Austria / The Austrian Times / April 6, 2010 Criticism of doctors at a Salzburg clinic is increasing after a second patient was given a drug he was allergic to. Peter Gerner, head of the anaesthetic and intensive care department at Salzburg’s Landeskrankenhaus clinic announced last week hospital bosses opted for self-indictment after a 80-year-old woman died when her post-surgery suffering was treated with the painkiller Novalgin – despite her informing staff about her allergy upon arrival. Now Salzburg-based Kurt Bauer said he considered himself lucky to be alive after undergoing surgery at the hospital. Bauer told the ORF yesterday (Mon) that he was given an infusion of Novalgin when part of his lung was removed by Landeskrankenhaus Salzburg surgeons last year. "I suffered an extraordinary attack of breathing difficulties one day after the operation. I was unable to breath but managed to scream," he said. Bauer found that his pain had been treated with Novalgin at the clinic when he checked documents regarding his stay at hospital. He said: "I suffer a syndrome which enables my bone marrow to produce red blood cells. A doctor said she must ‘totally apologise’ to me in an examination a while later. She admitted I was given two Novalgin infusions despite my clinical record mentioned my disease." Officials refused to comment on Bauer’s allegations, but announced a statement for later today. Landeskrankenhaus Salzburg bosses revealed last week they would introduce a fully-automatic "e-medication" computer system following the death of the 80-year-old woman. The system will record all information about a patient’s disease and will warn doctors of possible difficulties, they said, stressing that the clinic would be the first in the country to use such a system. [rc] Source: The Austrian Times

USA: New Focus on Averting Errors - Hospital Culture

. NEW YORK, NY / The Wall Street Journal / Business / Health / March 16, 2010 The Informed Patient By Laura Landro Errors made by doctors, nurses and other medical caregivers cause 44,000 to 98,000 deaths a year. Hospital infections, many considered preventable, take another 100,000 lives. And mistakes involving medications injure 1.3 million patients annually in the U.S., according to the Food and Drug Administration. Julie Thao looks at Regina Young, mother of Jasmine Gant, as Ms. Young prepares to read her statement to the court during a hearing in 2006 about her medical error that led to Ms. Gant's death. John Maniaci/Wisconsin State Journal. Hospitals are taking what might seem like a surprising approach to confronting the problem: Not only are they trying to improve safety and reduce malpractice claims, they're also coming up with procedures for handling—and even consoling—staffers who make inadvertent mistakes. The National Quality Forum, a government-advisory body that sets voluntary safety standards for hospitals, has developed a Care of the Caregiver standard, calling on hospitals to treat traumatized staffers involved in errors as patients requiring care, then involving them in the investigation of what went wrong if their behavior was not found to be reckless or intentional. Just Culture, a model developed by engineer David Marx, stresses finding a middle ground between a blame-free culture, which attributes all errors to system failure and says no individual is held accountable, and overly punitive culture, where individuals are blamed for all mistakes. A new study published in the April edition of the Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, which examines one fatal medical mistake to analyze what went wrong, shows how assigning blame for errors can be a murky exercise. Four years ago, nurse Julie Thao mistook a bag of epidural painkiller for penicillin and hooked it up to an IV line that pumped the painkiller—meant to be injected into the spine later—into the bloodstream of Jasmine Gant, a 16-year-old who was about to deliver a baby at St. Mary's Hospital in Madison, Wis. The teen's heart collapsed. Her baby was delivered successfully by emergency Caesarean section, but Ms. Gant didn't survive. Ms. Thao says she was fired from the hospital after the death, and she was later prosecuted by the state for criminal negligence. Ms. Thao's case has helped galvanize efforts to ensure that caregivers are treated fairly—without absolving them of responsibility for risky behavior. The study, led by researchers at the non-profit Institute for Safe Medication Practices, concludes that while Ms. Thao consciously bypassed multiple safety procedures, there were also a host of system flaws that allowed and even encouraged her to do so, contributing to the fatal error. Researchers found that Ms. Thao failed to put an identification bracelet on her patient or use the hospital's bar-coding system, designed to match the right medication to the right patient. But the bar-coding system had glitches, and nurses hadn't been adequately trained on it, so they often bypassed it. Both medications—which looked alike—were brought into the patient's room before orders were given, a violation of policy. Fatigue increased Ms. Thao's likelihood of making a mistake, the study found. Ms Thao had worked two consecutive eight-hour shifts the day before and then slept in the hospital before coming on duty again the next morning, but there were no rules at the hospital to prevent her from being overworked. In editorials accompanying the study, patient-safety experts, including Charles Denham, co-chairman of a National Quality Forum safe-practices committee, and Harvard University health-policy professor Lucian Leape are harshly critical of the way Ms. Thao was fired by the hospital and then left to fend for herself with no income and no financial resources to defend herself in charges later brought by the state. "We all believe that Julie should be held accountable for her behavior, but she didn't receive support from her organization or treatment that was just," says Dr. Denham. "It is clear that other nurses might have made the same error due to the social conditions and technical systems in the hospital. Officials at St. Mary's, which paid $1.9 million to settle a malpractice suit brought by Ms. Gant's family, say they treated Ms. Thao properly. The hospital's president, Frank Byrne declines to discuss the specifics of Ms. Thao's dismissal, but says the hospital was supportive; when it learned the state planned to bring criminal charges, Dr. Byrne says he did everything he could to stop it and appeared at court proceedings to lend moral support. He included his own commentary in the patient-safety journal, describing safety steps taken after Ms. Gant's death, including limiting work hours for nurses. "We never attempted to shirk acknowledgment of our system issues," he says. In Ms. Thao's case, under a plea agreement, felony charges were amended to two misdemeanor counts. Afterward, her nursing license was suspended and she was barred for several years from working for any hospital that accepts federal funding from Medicare. Safety advocates and nursing groups also question the use of criminal charges brought against nurses and doctors who make unintentional mistakes, saying they set a chilling precedent. "Criminal accusations against health care providers who work in a system set up to fail are extreme," says Sue Sheridan, co-founder of Consumers Advancing Patient Safety. "By the same token, there has to be some accountability when families have suffered a tragic loss." Dr. Denham took Ms. Thao on as a patient-safety fellow in his own medical-research concern, TMIT, for two years. He now retains her to do contract patient-safety research. Ms. Thao, who was briefly hospitalized for depression after the event, says she considered taking her own life. She says her patient-safety work has helped her to cope with her despair over her errors. "Every hospital in America is wrestling with how to hold practitioners accountable for key safety behaviors," says Mr. Marx, whose company, Outcome Engineering, consults with hospitals, states and nursing boards on the Just Culture Model and helped train 20,000 employees at St. Mary's after the Thao case. It's designed to "address risky behaviors before they lead to the death of a patient," he says, coaching those who make risky decisions, such as failing to wash hands before touching patients or skipping important checks in administering medications. "We know just punishing human error does not improve safety," says St. Mary's Dr. Byrne. "But we have to separate unavoidable error from reckless behavior and unjustifiable risk." [rc] Laura Landro E-Mail: laura.landro@wsj.com Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

USA: Some older ER patients are getting the wrong medicines, study finds

. ANN ARBOR, Michigan / University of Michigan Health System / Neurology / March 12, 2010 Certain pain relievers and antihistamines are among most common drugs used in emergency visits, in spite of known risks to those over age 65 A University of Michigan study recently published in Academic Emergency Medicine says that it is common for patients 65 and older to receive potentially inappropriate medications when treated in an emergency room. Nearly 19.5 million older patients, or 16.8 percent of eligible emergency visits from 2000-2006, received one or more potentially inappropriate medications. The large sample of approximately 470,000 emergency department and outpatient clinic visits, corresponding to a national estimate of about 1.5 billion total visits, allowed the researchers to determine the extent of the problem nationwide. “There are certain medications that probably are not good to give to older adults because the potential benefits are outweighed by potential problems,” says lead author, William J. Meurer, M.D., M.S., assistant professor, U-M Departments of Emergency Medicine and Neurology. Patient receiving medication Researchers looked at a nationwide sample of emergency visits using data from the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, to see how many patients aged 65 and older sent home from the ED were prescribed potentially inappropriate medications. Ten medications accounted for 86.5 percent of PIMs used in the ED. The five most common ones were promethazine, ketorolac, propoxyphene, meperidine, and diphenhydramine; and two of these – promethazine and ketorolac – accounted for nearly 40 percent. Meurer suggested that further efforts are needed to educate doctors about the suitability of certain medications for older adults. He also says the study showed that prescribing inappropriate medications was less likely to occur if a resident or intern was involved in the treatment, probably due to the fact that younger doctors have had recent training about medications. There was substantial regional and hospital type (teaching vs. non-teaching) variability. PIMs were less likely to occur in visits to hospitals in the Northeast and twice as likely in other parts of the country. And receiving a potentially inappropriate medication was more likely to occur at for-profit hospitals. The study did not explore the possibility of medication interactions, so it is possible that the potential harm by medications is underestimated. Meurer offers the following advice to patients: 1. Make sure you talk to your primary care physician, either during or after your ED visit. 2. Know what medications and supplements you are taking and make sure the nurses and doctors at the ED know. 3. Talk to the ED doctors and nurses about how long the medicines they have given you will affect you. 4. Ask for a list of all medications that you received while at the ED before you leave the ED for home or to go to a bed in the hospital. The list should include information on the possible side effects of those medicines. 5. If you leave the ED and then have an adverse event caused by medication, contact your physician immediately or go back to the emergency department. 6. Be proactive with your pharmacy and make sure you understand what you are taking. Additional authors: Tommy A. Potti; Kevin A. Kerber, M.D., M.S.; Comilla Sasson, M.D., M.S.; Michelle L. Macy, M.D., Brady T. West, M.S.; and Eve D. Losman, M.D. All are part of the University of Michigan Health System. Funding: The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. Meurer and Potti received support from the Summer Research Training in Aging for Medical Students program from the National Institutes of Health, National Institutes of Aging. Reference: Academic Emergency Medicine 2010; 17: 231-237 © Copyright 2008 Regents of the University of Michigan [rc]

THAILAND: Ten poor and elderly who lost sight given Bt300,000 each

. BANGKOK, Thailand / The Nation / January 11, 2010 KHON KAEN HOSPITAL IN THE DARK By Saovalak Kongpakpoon, Sompoch Sombat, Chayanont Praneet The Nation, Khon Kaen City As the mysteries continues over how so many patients in a charitable eye-operation programme for the old and poor got infected and went blind, ten victims struggle to cope as their lives go from bad to worse. Cataract surgery been part of a government healthcare project that gave hope and shed light on darkness. But operations at Khon Kaen Hospital have become haunting nightmares for 10 patients who are now blind in at least one eye. The loss of eyesight came from serious infections that took place right inside the surgical theatre, adding to the pain and suffering of the old and poor, who had chosen the cheap, state-sponsored operations as a last resort. "My heart broke," Jai Mankong said tearfully. He sighed deeply when looking at his security-guard uniform. "I'm struggling hard to adjust to my life at home, let alone to resuming work. It will be a very long absence from my job," he said. One of his eyes was removed following the infection. Nang Oun-sua, 65, said she cried a lot because the partial blindness caused much difficulty for her life. "I cannot even walk unassisted in my home," she said. She used to believe that she was so familiar with her house that she could walk around with her eyes closed. However, now that she is blind in one eye, she knows she was wrong. "I walked right into a pole inside the house and fell down," she said. Another victim, Uam Kaeso, was still trembling when asked about her condition. She lost the sight of her left eye after undergoing cataract surgery at the hospital. "I don't want to talk about it," the widow said. Her husband had just died and she was hardly getting over it when the eye infection added salt to her emotional wounds. Other blinded patients are hardly better off. Wan Kamnongpai, 69, is now spending his life in front of a TV set that he can never see again. Blind in his right eye since childhood, the man has now become totally sightless because his other eye got seriously infected during the recent cataract surgery. He can no longer live a normal life. With his wife by his side, Wan has chosen to listen to the voices from the TV to prevent him from getting too depressed. See earlier report Peng Kongsee confessed that the partial blindness had hurt her deeply. "I was shocked and grieved," she said about her feelings when her doctor told her that her right eye would never see again. Through encouragement from her children and the doctors' pledge to take good care of her health, Peng has been trying hard to get over her loss. "I have to tell myself that I might have done something wrong in my past life and the bad deeds were getting at me," she said. Her daughter, Jariya Ployres, said she felt so sorry for her mother. Crying has now left her eyes so red. Niyom Saengnoy's chicken-rice stall has been closed for nearly one month now. It was because he has not yet been able to return to a normal life after he lost the sight of his right eye because of the fateful cataract operation. "At first, the loss was too much to bear. I kept blaming the doctors," Niyom said. But after hearing their explanations, he was totally convinced that no doctor would ever want to blind his patients. "So I keep telling myself that my life will have to go on. I will fight on," he said. He plans to return to his chicken-rice stall as soon as he has fully recovered. Dr Weerasak Anut-angkoon, head of the hospital's ophthalmology division, said the case doctors were also deeply hurt about what happened to their patients. "They have taken leave and turned to temples in a bid to seek peace of mind," he said. Weerasak said no doctor wanted such things to happen. "But now that they happened, we will do our best to help the affected patients and to prevent such complications from happening in the future," he said. Pan Janruang, one of the victims, thinks doctors showed responsibility for what had happened. "So, I hold no grudges against them. By the way, if they fail to honour the promise to give me free treatment throughout my life, I will sue them," Pan said. All the blinded patients were those receiving cataract surgery at Khon Kaen Hospital from December 14-15. Each of these 10 patients are entitled to Bt300,000 compensation, free medical services for life and, if their eyes were removed, free quality artificial eyeballs. Thongpak Thongrak, who received only Bt50,000 compensation, was the only fortunate one to get infected without losing her eyesight. Bacterial infection affected her eye but another operation saved it. "I was over the moon when I found out about one week later that I can still see," she said. [rc] (c) 2007 NMG News Co., Ltd.

GERMANY: Trapped in his own body for 23 years, coma victim screamed unheard

. LONDON, England / The Guardian / World News / November 23, 2009

* Misdiagnosed man's tale of rebirth thanks to doctor 
• Total paralysis masked fully functioning brain


By Kate Connolly in Berlin

For 23 years Rom Houben was ­imprisoned in his own body. He saw his doctors and nurses as they visited him during their daily rounds; he listened to the conversations of his carers; he heard his mother deliver the news to him that his father had died. But he could do nothing. He was unable to communicate with his doctors or family. He could not move his head or weep, he could only listen. Rom Houben, 46, was diagnosed as being in a vegetative state after an accident in his 20s but can now communicate by computer keyboard. Photograph: VTM Belgium Doctors presumed he was in a vegetative state following a near-fatal car crash in 1983. They believed he could feel nothing and hear nothing. For 23 years. Then a neurologist, Steven Laureys, who decided to take a radical look at the state of diagnosed coma patients, released him from his torture. Using a state-of-the-art scanning system, Laureys found to his amazement that his brain was functioning almost normally. "I had dreamed myself away," said Houben, now 46, whose real "state" was discovered three years ago, according to a report in the German magazine Der Spiegel this week. Laureys, a neurologist at the ­University of Liege in Belgium, published a study in BMC Neurology earlier this year saying Houben could be one of many cases of falsely diagnosed comas around the world. He discovered that although Houben was completely paralysed, he was also completely conscious — it was just that he was unable to communicate the fact. Houben now communicates with one finger and a special touchscreen on his wheelchair – he has developed some movement with the help of intense physiotherapy over the last three years. He realised when he came round after his accident, which had caused his heart to stop and his brain to be starved of oxygen for several minutes, that his body was paralysed. Although he could hear every word his doctors spoke, he could not communicate with them. "I screamed, but there was nothing to hear," he said, via his keyboard. The Belgian former engineering student, who speaks four languages, said he coped with being effectively trapped in his own body by meditating. He told doctors he had "travelled with my thoughts into the past, or into another existence altogether". Sometimes, he said, "I was only my consciousness and nothing else". Rom Houben was misdiagnosed as being in a vegetative state after a car crash left him totally paralysed. Picture: Sky News The moment it was discovered he was not in a vegetative state, said Houben, was like being born again. "I'll never forget the day that they discovered me," he said. "It was my second birth". Experts say Laureys' findings are likely to reopen the debate over when the decision should be made to terminate the lives of those in comas who appear to be unconscious but may have almost fully-functioning brains. Belgian doctors used an internationally-accepted scale to monitor Houben's state over the years. Known as the Glasgow Coma Scale, it requires assessment of the eyes, verbal and motor responses. But they failed to assess him correctly and missed signs that his brain was still functioning. Last night his mother, Fina, said in an interview with Belgian RTBF that they had taken him to the US five times for reexamination. The breakthrough came when it became clear that Houben could indicate yes and no with his foot. "Powerlessness. Utter powerlessness. At first I was angry, then I learned to live with it," he tapped out on to the screen during an interview with the Belgian network last night, AP reported. Laureys, who is head of the Coma Science Group and department of neurology at Liege University hospital, has advised on several prominent coma cases, such as the American Terri Schiavo, whose life support was withdrawn in 2005 after 15 years in a coma. Laureys concluded that coma patients are misdiagnosed "on a disturbingly regular basis". He examined 44 patients believed to be in a vegetative state, and found that 18 of them responded to communication. "Once someone is labelled as being without consciousness, it is very hard to get rid of that," he told Der Spiegel. He said patients suspected of being in a non-reversible coma should be "tested 10 times" and that comas, like sleep, have different stages and need to be monitored. Houben hopes to write a book detailing his trauma and his "rebirth". rc] © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009

JAPAN: Nut left in man's heart didn't kill him, doctors claim

. TOKYO, Japan / The Japan Times / Life in Japan / November 7, 2009 UTSUNOMIYA, Tochigi Prefecture / Kyodo Ashikaga Red Cross Hospital in Tochigi Prefecture said Friday that doctors accidentally left a metal nut inside the heart of a patient who underwent surgery last month, but denied any linkage to the man's death soon after the operation. "A nut was left by our mistake, but there is no causal linkage to the death," a hospital official claimed. The patient, whose name is being withheld, underwent the operation to attach an artificial valve to the heart on October 5, the hospital said. However, doctors accidentally dropped a 1.5-cm nut, part of a medical device for the operation, in the left atrium of his heart. The hospital found the nut right after the surgery when it took X-rays, and conducted another operation to remove it. The man died October 8. Police are investigating. [rc] (C) The Japan Times Ltd. Illustraton source: hearttour

UK: Patient locked inside ambulance by forgetful driver

. LONDON, England / EarthTimes / Aging / October 31, 2009 A 65-year-old patient in the English city of Manchester was locked inside an ambulance for five hours when his driver forgot about him after finishing his workday, it was reported Saturday. The elderly man was trapped inside the vehicle - a non-emergency ambulance used for ferrying patients to appointments - at an ambulance station in the Manchester area on Tuesday evening until nearly 1 am the following day. The driver, who was supposed to return him to his care home after a hospital appointment, is thought to have forgotten about the man after dropping off three other patients who were inside the ambulance. The senior, a dialysis patient, was in good condition after the incident and was reported to called the event "just one of those things." The ambulance driver has been suspended. [rc] Copyright DPA

NETHERLANDS: Internet typing error costs father €43,000

. AMSTERDAM, Netherlands / DutchNews Newsletter / September 24, 2009 A man from Wageningen has gone to court to try to recover €43,000 he sent to the wrong bank account, The Telegraaf reports on Thursday. The man was attempting to pay the money into his son's bank account but made a one-digit error when putting the number into his internet banking system. Instead the cash went to a woman in Almelo who refused to return it. She used most of the money to buy a car and pay off her gambling debts. Police also found €10,000 in cash at her house. The man has now gone to court to ask for the money back. The entire process could take years, the paper says. [rc] © DutchNews.nl

NEW ZEALAND: Immigration officials told elderly Indian to consult an astrologist

. AUCKLAND, New Zealand / The New Zealand Herald / National News / July 30, 3009 'See an astrologist,' Immigration tells elderly man An elderly Indian trying to emigrate to New Zealand was perplexed when immigration officials told him he had to consult an astrologist about his medical condition. New Zealand Doctor newspaper reported this week that the man from Vadodara (Baroda), Gujarat, wanting to join his daughter and son-in-law in Hawke's Bay, was diagnosed with atrophic testes in an immigration medical test in India in October 2007. Click here to read Amanda Cameron's report "Astrologist check for visa medical" in New Zealand Doctor. Last month Immigration New Zealand wrote to him saying its medical assessor had requested a test before it could proceed further with his visa application. "Astrologist to review and comment on significance of this and whether or not surgery is required," the letter said. The elderly man made two long and costly trips to separate doctors in India but was turned away both times after being told there was "something wrong with the letter", said his son-in-law, who wished to remain anonymous. Worried because the June 17 letter requested the information from the astrologist by July 17, the couple took the letter to Hastings GP Paddy Twigg. "They asked me to interpret the letter for them," Dr Twigg told NZ Doctor. "They didn't really believe what they were reading." Dr Twigg told them the most likely explanation was that "astrologist" was a typing error and should read "urologist" instead. Immigration NZ confirmed the error and dispatched a new letter with the word "urologist" instead of "astrologist", and a new deadline of July 26. The elderly man has since seen a urologist and the family is waiting to see the medical report, his son-in-law said. The Department of Labour said Immigration NZ's Shanghai office handled the case and the error was made by the visa officer in transcribing the medical assessor's report. [rc] - NZPA Copyright 2009, APN Holdings NZ Limited

JAPAN: Prime Minster Aso draws flak for saying working is seniors' only talent

. TOKYO, Japan / The Japan Times / Kyodo News / July 26, 2009 Prime Minister Taro Aso drew quick fire Saturday after he told a Yokohama gathering of young people the "elderly have no talents other than working." Speaking at a meeting of the Junior Chamber International Japan, Aso pointed out the differences between youths and seniors, saying, "It would be too late if you (meeting participants) learned to play after the age of 80." Later in the day, the gaffe-prone prime minister said his remark was in the context of encouraging elderly people to continue to work. "I told (the Yokohama meeting) that providing job opportunities to elderly people in good health will open a bright future to society. It seems my words have been misunderstood," he said in a later speech in Sendai. But Aso's foes, waiting for any slip-up by him ahead of the August 30 Lower House poll, were quick to pounce. Japanese Communist Party leader Kazuo Shii called the remark an "insult" to seniors. "The elderly live with wishes and hopes for a meaningful life in their senior years," he said. The JCP chief further slammed Aso, touching on past incidents where he drew flak from various corners. "He can't correctly pronounce kanji and is too insensitive to the pains of the people," Shii said. "The public already gave up on him." [rc] (C) The Japan Times

SWEDEN: After years of stashing cash, 83-year-old forgets it on tram to the bank

. GOTHENBURG, Sweden / Aftonbladet - AFP / March 2, 2009 A woman lost her life savings when she forgot 500,000 kronor ($86,206) on a Swedish tram as she was headed to the bank to deposit the money, a newspaper reported on Sunday. The 83-year-old retired seamstress, identified only as Birgitta, had for years kept her savings in a desk in her home in the south-western city of Gothenburg, but had finally decided it would be safer to put the cash in a bank account, the Aftonbladet daily reported. On February 19, she had filled a paper bag to the brim with 10,000-kronor piles of bank notes before taking a tram to the centre of town. "I was going to the bank to deposit the money," she told the paper. But when she got to her stop, she forgot the bag and got off leaving her life savings behind. Birgitta was too embarrassed to tell her family what had happened at first, and when they finally contacted the streetcar company the money was long gone. "I don't think there is a chance I'll get the money back, but if someone does return it they will of course receive a finder's fee," she told Aftonbladet. Gothenburg police were more optimistic however, pointing out that surveillance cameras on the tram could help them identify who had taken the bag of money. AFP

U.K.: Elderly patients 'at risk of adverse drug reactions in hospital'

. LONDON, England / The Telegraph / February 11, 2009 The cocktail of medications taken by many older people is contributing to a high number of adverse reactions in hospital, a new study has found. By Kate Devlin, Medical Correspondent Research into more than 3,000 patients found that one in seven had had a reaction to drugs they received in hospital. Most susceptible were elderly patients, the study found, who were often already taking a handful of different medications. Problems included bleeding, confusion, kidney damage and infection with Clostridium difficle, with some patients suffering more than one side effect. Previous studies have shown that 250,000 people in Britain are admitted to hospital every year because of adverse reactions to a variety of prescribed drugs. Elderly patients 'at risk of adverse drug reactions in hospital' Photo: Getty But there was little evidence of how common the problem was among patients already being treated in hospital. The study, by researchers at the University of Liverpool, followed patients on 12 hospital wards over six months. It also found that patients who had a reaction to the drugs they were given had to spend an average of an extra six hours in hospital. Prof Munir Pirmohamed, one of the authors of the report, said: "A significant predictor of adverse drug reactions in hospitals is the number of medications a patient is taking; each additional drug treatment increases the risk of experiencing an adverse drug reaction. "This is one of the reasons why elderly people experience a higher incidence of reactions than young people, as they have more health conditions and generally take more medications. "Our results show that the overall burden of reactions on hospitals is high and therefore new methods of intervention are needed to reduce this. "The results are consistent with data from other parts of the world and this is therefore not just an issue for Merseyside hospitals, but hospitals throughout the Western world." The findings of the study, carried out with researchers from Liverpool John Moores University and the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospital Trust, are published in the journal PLoS ONE. © Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2009

JAPAN: Eighty-year old executive loses $4m buried in garden

. Freshly printed yen banknotes. An elderly Japanese businessman buried four million dollars in his garden for safekeeping only to find it dug up by a thief, police said. AFP/File photo TOKYO / AFP / January 29, 2009 An elderly Japanese businessman buried four million dollars in his garden for safekeeping only to find it dug up by a thief, police said Thursday. The man in his 80s discovered the theft in October and died two months later. As he left no records, it took time for investigators to piece together the details. The man, who was still serving on a corporate board when he died, had put cash into a container over four decades, repeatedly digging it up and then placing it back in the ground in his yard in southern Saga prefecture. On October 10, he noticed at around 6:00 am that something was amiss. "He noticed that there are signs that parts of his yard were dug up. Then he learned that the container in which he kept the money was gone," a local police official said. Police were searching for the culprit behind the theft of the cash, estimated at 360 million yen (four million dollars). "He buried the money because financial institutions are offering only low interest rates, and he thought it was better to keep his cash himself," the official said. "He chose to bury the cash in his garden to avoid damage from possible house fires or earthquakes," he said. The businessman had recollected that the last time he had checked the money was in the middle of 2007, the official said. Copyright © 2009 Agence France Presse.

JAPAN: 900,000 pension records delayed

. TOKYO, Japan / The Japan Times / Kyodo News / January 21, 2009 About 900,000 pension records that have been corrected by pensioners remained unprocessed at the Social Insurance Agency and related offices as of the end of December, according to SIA officials. About 118,000 cases were left unprocessed at the agency's local offices and nearly 800,000 had not been dealt with at a center in Tokyo where final payment amounts are decided, causing delays in the payment of additional pension amounts resulting from approved corrections. Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Yoichi Masuzoe said in Monday's session of the House of Councilors Budget Committee that he intends to double the number of cases processed at the center by spring from the current 100,000 per month. Corrections to pension records are accepted at the agency's branches and necessary documentation is then sent to the center for the finalization of payment amounts before they are paid to pensioners. (C) The Japan Times Ltd.

U.K.: Pensions blunder: Xmas present Darling could have done without

. LONDON, England / The First Post / December 16, 2008 Hundreds of thousands of public sector pensioners, including civil servants and ex-soldiers, are facing a claw-back after the Christmas holiday for a blunder by the Government agency, Xafinity, which has made over-payments. The Cabinet Office will confirm in a statement being rushed out on Tuesday that the agency has been paying the public sector pensioners too much for years. Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, said the claw-back would not be retrospective. Instead, it will be taken from future payments. That will not come as any comfort to the pensioners who are going to see their public sector pensions cut back. It puts a fresh complexion on the popular view that public sector workers have been feather-bedded with final salary pension schemes that the rest of us can only dream about. The disaster facing the pensioners was revealed by Vince Cable, the Lib Dem treasury spokesman, who compared it to the blunder at Revenue and Customs over the loss of data discs for 25 million people. Cable rightly said the Chancellor needs this news like a hole in the head. Cable said he had been told to keep it quiet until the pensioners could be notified, which they were over the weekend. The extent of the sums involved was not clear but it's no wonder that Darling is looking greyer than ever. © Copyright Dennis Publishing Limited

INDIA: Nursing home to pay Rs 7 lakh to patient for wrong treatment

. NEW DELHI (The Times of India), October 7, 2008: A woman whose kidneys were damaged due to wrong treatment at a nursing home has been awarded a compensation of Rs 700,000 by a consumer court which held her doctor guilty of deficiency in service while performing a kidney stone removal operation. "Keeping in view the life-long suffering of Ramkali who has now become dialysis-dependent and the recurring expenditure to be incurred by her, we award a compensation of Rs 700,000," Forum (west) President J P Sharma said. Ramkali approached the Forum seeking Rs 10 lakh as compensation from west Delhi-based Handa Nursing Home, alleging wrong treatment resulting into deterioration of her health. While Ramkali held Urologist A K Handa responsible for the alleged wrong meted out to her, the nursing home dismissed it saying she was being treated as per standard practice. The Forum, on its part, sought expert opinion from AIIMS on the complications developed by Ramkali and the line of treatment adopted by Dr Handa. "We have no hesitation to hold that Dr Handa resorted to Ureteroscopy in haste and did not bother to find out the cause of pain with the patient whose condition went on deteriorating with the line of treatment given to her," the Forum, also comprising members Krishna K Gupta and S M Mazumdar, said. The Forum also observed that instead of finding out the real cause of pain, the surgeon resorted to administering antibiotics and pain killers which are known toxic elements for the functioning of kidneys. "The evidence as such clearly makes out a case of medical negligence and deficiency in service on the part of Handa Nursing Home," it said. Copyright © 2008 Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd.

USA: Medicare Stops Payments for Medical Errors

. Dr. Peter Cole's "Time-Out!" towel reminds members of the surgical team, including Steven Huray, a technician, to count the sponges and instruments to ensure that none are left behind inside the patient's body. T.C. Worley for The New York Times NEW YORK TIMES, October 1, 2008 By Kevin Sack ST. PAUL — If an auto mechanic accidentally breaks your windshield while trying to repair the engine, he would never get away with billing you for fixing his mistake. On Wednesday, Medicare will start applying that logic to American medicine on a broad scale when it stops paying hospitals for the added cost of treating patients who are injured in their care. Medicare, which provides coverage for the elderly and disabled, has put 10 “reasonably preventable” conditions on its initial list, saying it will not pay when patients receive incompatible blood transfusions, develop infections after certain surgeries or must undergo a second operation to retrieve a sponge left behind from the first. Serious bed sores, injuries from falls and urinary tract infections caused by catheters are also on the list. Officials believe that the regulations could apply to several hundred thousand hospital stays of the 12.5 million covered annually by Medicare. The policy will also prevent hospitals from billing patients directly for costs generated by medical errors. Because Medicare is the largest insurer in the country, its decision to refuse payment for preventable conditions has already influenced others — public and private — to set similar criteria. Over the last year, four state Medicaid programs, including New York’s, have announced that they will not pay for as many as 28 “never events” (so called because they are never supposed to happen). So have some of the country’s largest commercial insurers, including WellPoint, Aetna, Cigna and Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in seven states. A number of state hospital associations, including here in Minnesota, have brokered voluntary agreements that members will not bill for medical errors. In April, Maine became the first state to ban the practice statutorily. The Congressionally mandated Medicare measure is not projected to yield large savings — $21 million a year, compared with $110 billion spent on inpatient care in 2007. But it carries great symbolism in the Bush administration’s efforts to revamp the country’s medical payment system, which has long been criticized as driving up costs through perverse incentives that reward the quantity of care more than the promotion of health. The real money, many health economists believe, may come from reorienting the payment system to encourage prevention and chronic disease management and to discourage unnecessary procedures. The two major-party presidential candidates support such a realignment, a rare point of consensus in a polarized health care debate. “This is a specific case of the larger pay-for-performance trend, the idea that you should pay more for quality than lack of quality, or in this case pay less for defects,” said Dr. Donald M. Berwick, president of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. “This whole trend is like a juggernaut, and it is not going to stop.” Pay-for-performance makes use of both the carrot and the stick. Medicare now grants bonuses to doctors and hospitals that report quality measures. It is experimenting with rewarding physicians who follow protocols for treating diabetes, coronary artery disease and congestive heart failure. The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, an arm of Congress, recently recommended reducing payments to hospitals with high readmission rates. Three years ago, HealthPartners, a Minnesota-based health maintenance organization, was first in the country to refuse payment to hospitals for never events. Company officials said the policy has yet to save much money. But at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, which is owned by HealthPartners, the change has reinforced a new focus on reducing medical errors. “Historically, there’s been some acceptance that these things happen,” said Brock D. Nelson, the hospital’s president. “We’ve come to now accept that they’re avoidable. And that’s a sea change.” Some improvements have been technological, like an electronic prescribing system that has helped cut medication errors in half. Others are breathtaking in their obviousness, like diligent hand-washing. Nurses have been trained to provide more information during shift changes about whether patients are prone to falls. High-risk medications like heparin are now marked with pink labels to ward against mix-ups. Shortly before Cynthia A. Kehborn’s recent ankle fusion surgery, her orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Peter A. Cole, checked records and asked her repeatedly whether he would be operating on her left leg. He then took a sterile marker and signed his initials on her left ankle. As they prepared for surgery, technicians tallied sponges and blades so they could later be sure that none were left behind. Before taking up his scalpel, Dr. Cole was reminded by the “Time-Out!” towel covering his surgical tray to call for a brief break. “We have Cynthia here for a left ankle fuse,” he announced. “Does everybody agree?” After all in the room chimed their agreement, he made his incision. In pre-op, Ms. Kehborn, 48, said it had never occurred to her that patients might be charged for a medical error. “It should be the hospital’s and doctor’s responsibility to step up to the plate and own up to their mistakes,” she said. “I’d be livid if we had to pay for it.” The patient safety movement picked up steam in this country in 1999, when the Institute of Medicine, a prestigious advisory group, estimated that 44,000 to 98,000 Americans died each year from preventable medical errors. In response, at least 20 states have passed laws requiring hospitals to report mistakes or preventable infections publicly, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services now requires hospitals to report on 42 quality measures. Hospitals that do not fully report may be docked up to 2 percent of their reimbursement. In 2002, the National Quality Forum, a standard-setting consortium for the health care industry, compiled a list of 27 largely preventable adverse events, a list that grew to 28 in 2006 with the addition of “artificial insemination with the wrong donor sperm or egg.” In 2003, Minnesota became the first state to require reporting of all errors on the list, and last year the state’s hospital association became the first to announce that its members would not bill for them. The number of never events in Minnesota reported to the state has been low — 106 in 2004-5, 154 in 2005-6 and 125 in 2006-7. The most frequent errors have been bed sores, retained objects and wrong-site surgeries. Regions Hospital had six or seven reportable errors in each of those years, including one death, a suicide. Dr. Peter Cole with Cynthia Kehborn prior to her surgery at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, Minn. Mr. Cole's initials are written on Ms. Kehborn's leg to indicate which ankle to operate on. T.C. Worley for The New York Times Because individual hospitals may report only a few serious errors a year, they have started collaborating to look for common threads and propose solutions. Some of the innovations were initially greeted with rolled eyes, but hospital officials say that has lessened. Nonetheless, studies by the University of Minnesota found that some of the safety procedures, like the pre-surgery time-outs, have largely become rote. Clear trend lines are not expected for several years. Some states have found through audits that not all errors are being reported, but Minnesota officials believe that compliance is high. “There’s been an understanding by hospitals that we’re not trying to get them, that we’re really focused on what we can learn from these events,” said Diane C. Rydrych, the state health department official in charge of reporting. Nancy E. Foster, vice president for quality and patient safety at the American Hospital Association, said hospitals had generally accepted that many of the 28 adverse events should never happen, like giving a patient the wrong type of blood. But she said other areas could be gray, like an injury caused by a malfunctioning device. “Anyone — I don’t care who they are — always finds it a little provocative to be held accountable for something that is not within their control, especially when you have dedicated yourself to doing the right thing for your patients,” Ms. Foster said. Such unforgiving standards, she said, can “set an expectation among patients that staff will be closer to perfect than they actually can achieve.” Even America’s Health Insurance Plans, the leading industry trade group, has questioned whether some of the conditions on the Medicare list are always preventable. But Peter V. Lee, executive director of the Pacific Business Group on Health, based in San Francisco, said occasional inequity was a price worth paying to send the message that careless medicine will not be tolerated. “I don’t worry about that 1-in-100 case that can’t be avoided,” he said, “because the benefit of not paying for the 99 that shouldn’t happen means a far greater focus on avoiding harm. What we want is to encourage doctors and hospitals to get to zero.” Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

USA: Campaign to create awareness about dangers of prescription medications

. NEW YORK (CNN), September 30, 2008: By Judy Fortin CNN Medical Correspondent A dozen old family photos were strewn across the table as Gary Neal picked them up one by one. Gary Neal lost his son Harrison, 17, to a prescription drug overdose. The attorney from Tulsa, Oklahoma, reminisced about his teenage son, Harrison, who died two years ago at the age of 17 after fatally mixing over-the-counter cold medication and someone else's prescription painkillers. "There's nothing worse as a parent than to see your kid on a gurney being rolled out of your house ... and placed in a hearse," Neal, 61, lamented. "There's nothing worse than that." Hoping to get the word out that in the wrong hands, prescription drugs can be deadly, Neal joined forces this year with the New York-based Partnership for a Drug-Free America. "We have 20 percent of our teenagers, one in five, who have admitted to abusing a prescription medication," said Steve Pasierb, president of the organization. "We know that is based on their attitudes and beliefs that this is safer." Pasierb's group, along with drug maker Abbott, launched an anti-drug campaign this summer called Not in My House.Video Health Minute: Watch more on one father's quest to raise awareness » The Internet-based educational campaign is aimed at educating not just teens but their parents about the dangers of prescription medications. Neal is working with Partnership for a Drug-Free America to raise awareness of the problem. "This is unlike any drug issue we've ever dealt with," Pasierb explained. "Supply can be controlled in our own house. We're not talking about Afghanistan or Colombia. We're talking about your house and my house." Neal learned that his son started experimenting with drugs such as marijuana when he was 15. "It was one of those things I wasn't happy about, but I didn't think it was the end of the world." Neal restricted Harrison's after-school activities, but he said that when the behavior continued, he ordered his son to submit to home and professional drug tests. He also enrolled Harrison in an outpatient drug treatment program the summer before his death. Neal suspected that the problems weren't behind them, but he was unaware that the teen was abusing prescription drugs. "I don't think he knew that his abuse of these prescription drugs would be deadly," Neal added. That's part of the problem being addressed by Pasierb's group. "It's this belief that they've found something safe. 'Grandma uses it. I can take a couple from her bottle,' " Pasierb explained. "When they're not used with a prescription and the way they are intended, prescription drugs can be every bit as dangerous, every bit as addictive, every bit as deadly as illegal street drugs." What's more, Pasierb said, "Over the past eight to 10 years, adolescent substance abuse, teen drinking and teen smoking have all been in a steady decline. The only thing that has been resistant to that progress has been prescription drug abuse." Pasierb put part of the blame on parents. The drugs of choice when they were young tended to be illegal ones: marijuana, heroin, cocaine. "This idea of purposely abusing prescription drugs didn't go on when they were teenagers themselves," he said. Part of the Not in My House campaign appeals directly to parents to take action starting with their own medicine cabinets. "When we get them the message, a light bulb goes off and they are immediately mobilized," Pasierb said. "They go home, they clean out their medicine cabinet ... and they talk with their kids." Specifically, the Not in My House campaign recommended that parents take an inventory of prescription medications at home, counting pills left in the bottle or package after every use. Medications should be stored in a safe place that is not readily accessible to everyone in the house. Finally, leftover or expired prescription pills should be disposed of properly. Experts cautioned not to flush medications down the toilet where they could harm the water supply but to place drugs in a an opaque container with something unpleasant mixed in, such as cat litter. The bottle should be sealed and placed in the trash. advertisement With the second anniversary of Harrison Neal's death approaching, his father still has a lot of questions and doubts. "Could I have done it better? Could I have done it different? Would the results have been different? You never know the answers to those questions because you never get a second chance. "I've lamented his death every second since he died and will live with it the rest of my life." © 2008 Cable News Network