This September, for the first time, New Zealanders across the motu will come together for a whānau-led world patient safety day campaign.
Led by patient advocacy groups Health Consumer Advocacy Alliance, Patient Voice Aotearoa and Kaitiaki Hauora, this event marks a significant step in bringing greater public attention to patient safety across Aotearoa. There is already real momentum among patients, whānau, health workers, organisations and communities for better patient safety.
Together, the concerns of patients and health professionals are highlighting the gravity of the challenges facing our health system.
Established by the World Health Organization in 2019, the day aims to bring patients, families, health workers, health leaders, policy-makers and communities around the world together with the shared goal of reducing avoidable harm in health care.
But this year, Aotearoa is not simply acknowledging the day. We are showing up — in bright orange!
Safer care starts when we listen to those who experience and deliver health care and act on what they tell us.
Previously, it has been consumers and patient advocates who mostly raised concerns about our health system. But health professionals are now also speaking up about working conditions, patient safety and lack of consultation. Those delivering care have direct insight into how system and workforce pressures affect safe care — they have the right, and deserve, to be consulted. Nurses, for example, are publicly raising concerns about working, conditions, staff and patient safety.
Together, the concerns of patients and health professionals are highlighting the gravity of the challenges facing our health system.
If the people delivering care are being pushed beyond safe limits, patient safety is already at risk.
We are bringing together people and organisations from across the health system and wider community to strengthen the focus on safer care. The concerns being raised by health workers reinforce what patients and whānau have been saying for years: Safety concerns need to be heard, taken seriously and acted on.
When the system puts staff under pressure, the people caring for us are left carrying the harm, mentally, emotionally, physically and financially.
There is important work already happening across our health system, with many people committed to making health care safer. But we need to stand alongside the international patient safety community, to raise awareness of why safer care matters across Aotearoa. We need to keep asking the most important questions: What can we do differently to make health care safer? What needs to change to better support our health workforce?
That is what September 17 is about. Not simply acknowledging patient safety. Showing up for it. Making it visible. Turning the conversation into action.
So far Auckland’s Sky Tower and landmarks in Wellington, Tauranga, Whangārei, Nelson, Christchurch and Dunedin have confirmed they will be illuminated in orange, with more expected to join.
But the real story is the people behind them.
People whose lives have been changed by preventable harm. Patients and whānau who have had experiences they never expected to have. Health professionals who know that safer systems are possible. And decision-makers who have the opportunity to listen and act.
There will also be a live-streamed patient safety forum in Auckland, bringing together patients, whānau, clinicians, health leaders and MPs from across the political spectrum. Patients and whānau will share their lived experiences directly with MPs, and describe the changes needed to reduce harm and build a safer health system. So far, parties? Have confirmed.
Feel free to come along, listen, ask questions, have your say — or watch online here.
— Charlotte Korte is a health advocate with lived experience of harm from a surgical mesh. She has been a strong advocate for surgical mesh reform, contributing to policy change, education and the development of a national surgical mesh restorative justice project. She co-founded the Health Consumer Advocacy Alliance with Denise Astil who, along with Liz Manley, are helping with world patient safety day.