Medical Errors Are Killing Canadians In Record Numbers: together we can reduce these unacceptable rates

In the past 11 years of the patient safety movement, our Canadian governments, federal and provincial, and the Canadian Medical Association have failed to protect Canadians from medical harm, and as a result, more than 250,000 people have died from medical error, many more have been injured, and millions of Canadian tax-dollars have been wasted on treating these resulting injuries, many of which were preventable. Medical error is the 3rd highest killer of Canadians, only behind cancer and heart disease.

Health Canada, its provincial counterparts, and the CMA need to be encouraged, need to be challenged to open the lines of communication and, with a genuine willingness, work quickly toward solutions to substantially reduce the rate of medical error. Lowering medical error rates will not start with physicians; the past has shown that present processes in place for dealing with medical error continue to lead to high rates of mortality and injury, and with such, garner the disgust of the families touched by medical harm. Health Canada, it's provincial counterparts, and the CMA could be that hero, a hero who is so desperately needed, needed to stem the tide of death by medicine.

By signing this petition, I will be helping the Institute of Medicine realize its 1999, and still unmet, vision of reducing medical errors by 50% through requesting:

1.  Continued attention to system failures within healthcare.

2.  Balancing no-blame with accountability for individual physicians

3.  Better training of patient safety for all healthcare workers.

4.  Providing a platform for those harmed by medical error to share 

     their story, and be heard.

5.  Mandatory medical error disclosure to patients and their families.

6.  Creating and maintaining a culture of patient safety which truly 

     values honest, transparent error communication where hospital

     management and physicians are accepting of their own 

     humanness and share a willingness to learn from their 

     medical mistakes.

7.  All provinces and territories in Canada legislate mandatory 

     reporting and investigation of all medical errors. Currently, only

     Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Quebec have such legislation.

8.  Explore a more open, honest and healing framework of conflict 

     resolution for medical error cases rather than adversarial 

     litigation so all involved can heal.

9.  Educating Canadians on how best to protect themselves and 

     their families from medical harm.

By signing this petition, I will help to reduce medical error rates by requesting that Health Canada, its provincial counterparts, and the CMA take aggressive action to substantially lower rates of medical error. In doing so, I will be helping to save millions of Canadian lives, save billions of Canadian tax-dollars, and help direct our country down a path towards safer healthcare, healthcare that Canadians not only expect, but so rightly deserve.