Almost 1100 cases of major harm and 34,000 cases of minor harm occurred in "clinical incidents" at Hunter hospitals in six years, health data shows. Login or signup to continue reading There were 47 cases of an unexpected death or "sentinel event" [preventable incident causing death or serious harm] at John Hunter Hospital from 2018 to 2023. The Newcastle Herald obtained the data through the Government Information Public Access (GIPA) Act .
The major harm incidents at hospitals were: John Hunter (455), John Hunter Children's (47), Calvary Mater (123), Belmont (99), Maitland (220), Cessnock (38), Kurri Kurri (31), Singleton (47), Muswellbrook (23) and Dungog (less than 20). Hunter New England Health did not provide the precise number of cases of an unexpected death or sentinel event at hospitals, except for John Hunter. It would only say this figure was "less than 20" at each of the other hospitals over the six-year period.
However, the data showed 97 "root cause analysis/serious adverse event reviews" occurred at all the Hunter hospitals over the six-year period. A root cause analysis of a serious adverse event occurs to pinpoint issues in the system that contributed to serious patient harm. The data also showed 16,704 cases of minor harm and 20,868 cases of "no harm or near miss" at John Hunter from 2018 to 2023.
At the other hospitals, these figures were John Hunter Children's (1026 and 3256), Calvary Mater (6353 and 6995), Belmont (2449 and 3322), Maitland (4076 and 7902),.
