World Patient Safety Day

• In World War II, Operation Matterhorn was a military operation of the United States Army Air Forces for the strategic bombing of Japanese forces. The name comes from the Matterhorn, a mountain the Alps, straddling the main watershed and border between Switzerland and Italy, traditionally considered particularly difficult to climb.
• The World Health Organization hosted the first-ever World Patient Safety Day on September 17, 2019.
• It is an awareness campaign, to be observed annually, to prevent harms to patients due to errors in diagnosis, errors in medicine prescriptions and treatments, and the inappropriate use of drugs. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 138 million patients are harmed every year by doctors' errors.
• 17 September was established as World Patient Safety Day by the 72nd World Health Assembly in May 2019.
• The theme of the very first World patient Safety Day was “Patient Safety: A Global Health Priority” and the slogan was “Speak up for Patient Safety”.

Source : Civil Services Chronicle Online, October, 2019