stern Investigative
Germs, medical errors, overworked doctors: 17,000 people die in hospitals every year due to avoidable errors. Experts criticize that patient safety is not a priority.
In German hospitals, up to 680,000 patients fall victim to treatment errors or a lack of care by doctors and nurses every year. This is why 17,000 patients die every year. This is the result of calculations by the patient safety expert and former government advisor, Matthias Schrappe. They are star and RTL exclusively. Most of the time, these are infections that patients contract in hospital or incorrectly dosed or mixed up medication.
These figures mean that every 27th death in a German hospital could have been avoided. According to the most recent available data (2022), the Federal Statistical Office counts a total of 457,743 deaths in hospitals.
The Federal Ministry of Health described Schrappe’s calculations to star and RTL as an “important data basis for the further development of patient safety”. The chairman of the Medical Service, Stefan Gronemeyer, said that Schrappe’s calculations were “much closer to reality” than the assessment figures from the medical associations and the Medical Service.
Treatment errors in hospitals: Schrappe evaluated 241 studies
Schrappe criticized the fact that treatment errors in Germany – unlike other countries – are not systematically recorded in a register. “Politicians do not treat the issue of patient safety as a priority,” he said. Even in the hospital reform that Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach is currently preparing, “the quality of treatment in German hospitals is not the focus,” said Schrappe. His figures are based on complex calculations that he had already carried out in 2018. He had evaluated 241 studies for this purpose.
Schrappe, born in 1955, an internist specializing in infectious diseases, was the chairman and medical director of the Marburg University Hospital and later director of the Institute for Patient Safety at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-University Bonn. He taught quality management at several universities for decades and advised the federal government from 2005 to 2011 as a member of the Advisory Council on the Assessment of Developments in the Health Care System.
Source: Stern
I’m Caroline, a journalist and author for 24 Hours Worlds. I specialize in health-related news and stories, bringing real-world impact to readers across the globe. With my experience in journalism and writing in both print and online formats, I strive to provide reliable information that resonates with audiences from all walks of life.
