Medical interventions are, by their very nature, high-risk procedures.  The nature of medicine as a hands-on endeavour and the essentially human basis for health systems means that medical treatment is inherently risky and has an inbuilt tendency for error. Studies have shown that adverse events in health care facilities affect a surprisingly high number of inpatients, with unintended harmful consequences occurring on average in 10% of acute admissions.   

According to the Heinrich ratio, 1 in every 330 adverse events result in a major injury, while 29 result in a minor injury. Death and serious disability occur in 0.3% and 1.7% of admissions respectively.  In the developed world, more people die in a given year as a result of medical errors than from motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer and AIDS put together.  Though this figure might seem high, an even greater concern is that between 50-80% of these events are potentially preventable.

Currently little substantive data exists on the magnitude of the problem in the Region.  However, assuming that 10% of acute admissions involve some sort of adverse event, the numbers of people affected in the Region can be estimated.  11.0%, 9.5% and 10.7% of the populations of Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia annually are admitted as inpatients to health facilities.  Therefore working on the basis that at least 10% of all inpatient episodes result in unintended harm, this represents a significant number of people affected by patient harm in countries of the Region. This figure could be much higher in less developed countries where the potential for mistakes is higher by virtue of their weaker, resource-poor health systems.