The Maldives has concluded the first national symposium on Patient Safety in collaboration with World Health Organisation (WHO).
The symposium was held from October 23-27. The theme for this year's Patient Safety Day was Medication Without Harm and the theme for the symposium was Patient Safety Starts with Me. The symposium, in collaboration with WHO, was attended by healthcare professionals from different disciplines across the nation, including lab technologists, community health workers, and health service discipline lecturers. A total of 75 participants attended the symposium in person and more than 100 participants attended online. The in-person session included two participants from each atoll and three to seven participants from hospitals in the Greater Male Region. It was also attended virtually by employees working in health service centres.
Ministry of Health said that the symposium discussed patient safety, safe and harmless medication, infection prevention and control, healthcare-associated infection monitoring, healthcare waste management, and healthcare equipment protection. The ministry also shared information on the importance of pharmacists in ensuring patient safety and familiarisation with the surgical checklist used for the safety of surgeries, as well as infection prevention in the curriculum of various health courses. Additionally, the ministry discussed reporting patient safety incidents, systems for learning from such incidents, and training from measures taken to retain the Point of Care Quality.
The health ministry said 30 projects on quality improvement were designed and presented to the participants with the help of facilitators. The successful implementation of these projects will have the opportunity to be published in an international newspaper and magazine.
The symposium was attended by 12 relevant Maldivian experts and 21 foreign experts. It was organised by the Quality Assurance and Regulatory Division (QARED) of the health ministry with the assistance of WHO and Point of Care Training was conducted in collaboration with the Nationwide Quality of Care Network (NQOCN) of India.