Whistleblower urges more medical inquests
An ex-coroner has claimed that the public is being denied information about deaths caused by medical mistakes. Kathleen Stephany, formerly the coroner in charge of special investigations, told the Georgia Straight that this is because the office of the chief coroner won't order inquests into medical-related deaths.
Stephany said that she was fired and her former department of medical investigations, which once had 12 employees, was eliminated in 2003 with "no real justification". Since then, the Coroners Service of British Columbia hasn't ordered a single inquest into a death linked to negligence by a physician or hospital.
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In 2004, the Canadian Medical Association Journal published a report that suggested medical errors are quite commonplace. It estimated that 7.5 percent of people admitted to Canadian hospitals in 2000 suffered an "adverse event", which was defined as anything causing death, disability, or an extended hospital stay; almost 40 percent of these were preventable. The study also estimated that there were between 9,250 and 23,750 "preventable deaths" in Canadian hospitals that year.
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