The Wire

A study has found 130 serious errors occurred in public hospitals between 2004 and 2005. The disturbing list of mistakes included leaving medical instruments inside patients and operating on the wrong body parts. The main doctors lobby group, the AMA, have said the number of errors from the recent study is proportionally “very small” considering the 4.3 million patients that were treated in the same period. But another medical group, the Doctor’s Reform Society, says the problem of hospital mistakes is enormous and out of control. The Wire asked Society’s president Dr Woodruff what he thought of the AMA coments, playing down the problem.