Iatrogenic Fatalities
It is reasonable that as we progress in the so called ‘developed’ countries, we can expect an improvement in general health of the community. Patients who get ill expect to have access to the wisdom and techniques of advanced medical science that offers them relief and also a cure.
This however is not the case and is becoming clear in the increasing need for public hospitals, new drugs, clinics for treating addictions, mental disease and a host of additional illnesses that have become identified over the last decades and that are conventionally treated by the modern system using predominantly drugs and surgery.
Iatrogenic is a term that has become well known only over the recent decades as statistics are accurately recording the medical mistakes of the professional doctors and surgeons in medical practice.
Iatrogenic causes of Death in US – reported by Dr. Barbara Starfield of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, Baltimore – in the Journal of American Medical Association Vol. 284 July 26, 2000, gives in her article “Death from Iatrogenic Causes” the following information …..
That in regard to deaths each year in the U.S –
12,000 are attributed to unnecessary surgery
7,000 to medication errors in hospitals
20,000 from other errors in hospitals
80,000 from infections in hospitals
106,000 from negative effects of seemingly appropriately administered drugs
There is a variation in the final estimates that range from 230,000 to 284,000 and made difficult because of the sometimes complex causes.
Dr. Starfield’s comparison that “only 60,000 Americans lost their life in the entire Vietnam war.”…. draws attention to the seriousness of the situation.
Figures show that heart disease and cancer feature as the primary causes of death in the community with Iatrogenic deaths following in third place with medical drugs playing a major role.
With full focus on the poor health care system that actually is responsible for many patients’ deaths instead of cures after admission to hospitals – there are other statistics that have emerged, showing additional negative patients’ experiences in outpatient services …
116 million ‘extra physician visits’ – 77 million extra prescriptions- 17 million emergency department visits – 8 million hospitalizations- 3 million long-term admissions. These account for 199,000 additional deaths and $77 billion dollars in estimated extra costs to the nation.
These figures need updating to 2009.
How do other nations compare? Well in a recent comparison in a project involving 13 countries USA ranked second last for 16 specific health indicators. This poor record has been confirmed by a World Health Organization study which used different data and ranked the US as 15th among 25 industrialized countries. Japan was rated the highest quality on health care and it must be noted, that home care is the traditional manner of dealing with illness in that country.
We are understandably disenchanted with the current modern medical system in western countries.
What has happened to Preventative Medicine ?
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