WPA Regional Webinar for Europe Region

The WPSD Regional Webinar for European region was held on 06th Sept 2021. The webinar was attended by patients and organizations from all over the European continent. Jolanta Bilinska, WPA founding Board member and PFPS Champion from Poland moderated the webinar. Jolanta welcomed the participants and provided an overview of the WPSD. She stressed upon patients and healthcare provider (HCP) partnership in achieving patient safety in the region and highlighted patients must speak to their HCP on how they can reduce safety risks during pregnancy and around the time of childbirth. Moreover, HCPs’ must also build their competencies for providing safe and respectful maternal and newborn care.

Professor Krzysztof Czajkowski, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the Warsaw Medical University, Poland presented on Safe care for mother and child. He emphasized the importance of education and training of doctors and healthcare providers in providing safe maternal and child healthcare services. The next speaker, Mr. Bartłomiej Chmielowiec, Patients Rights Ombudsman, Poland was represented by the deputy director of his department, who spoke on the topic “patients’ rights are important in difficult COVID-19 Time”. He informed that patient right ombudsman has been established to protect the rights of every patient while receiving healthcare in the country. The department also informs and educates patients on different healthcare issues including their rights during clinical trial. Dr. Alpana Mair, head of Prescribing and Therapeutics for Scottish government presented on medication safety during the webinar. She highlighted on the patient centered digital approach to address polypharmacy and high risk medicines. The HCP while thinking about treatment options should also think about how we adapt that to the individual patient in front of us. Therefore, person centered approach must be adapted to ensure medication safety, which includes making patients active partners while prescribing medicines.

The last speaker of the webinar was Dr. Mafaten Chaouali, Technical Officer, Hospitals-Quality & Patient Safety at the Health Workforce and Service Delivery Unit of the Division of Country Health Policies and Systems of the WHO Regional Office for Europe. Dr. Chaouali provided an overview of the WPSD 2021 and briefed about this year theme. The WPSD aim is to work together towards solidarity and action to promote patient safety and increase public awareness and engagement in health care safety. There is significant burden of harm that women and newborns are exposed to due to unsafe care, and that most of these lives can be saved through the provision of safe care, as well as the fact that women’s experiences during childbirth may be affected by issues of gender equity, and violence. The majority of maternal and newborn death and stillbirth are avoidable by the early detection of risk factors. We need a healthcare system that supports women to have a safe delivery and healthy infant by providing a continuous care services throughout the childbearing continuum. The WHO regional office for Europe supports member states in implementing the European action plan for sexual and reproductive health, towards achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in Europe, leaving no one behind. This action plan covers maternal and child from preconception

The 2021 EURO region World Patient Safety Day webinar is available for viewing on the WPA YouTube channel at World Patients Alliance Regional Webinar for Euro Region (WPSD 2021) – YouTube