Abstract

Patient safety as a culture is fundamental to excellent health care delivery that forms the foundation of all other healthcare delivery process. Medical error is cankerworms that are ready to eat up the foundation where health care system is standing on; all hands must be on deck to fight the menace in the health sector in order to be able to achieve the desired outcome. There are various evidence from current studies that opined that the health care system in Nigeria will continues to be behind when compared to developed countries if the problem of medical errors and patient safety is not given an urgent attention.  Sustained public interest will be relevant in  creating the momentum  or willingness that are necessary to effect the required change in the health care system , thereby reducing the incidence of  medical error. In addition, although there has been a great deal of talk about using systems approach to address the problem of patient safety and medical errors, there has not been much discussion regarding exactly how this integration is to be accomplished.

Patient safety is being more and more recognized as a duty of health care institutions. Ensuring patient safety has many aspects. Nurses sometimes do not recognize the multiple roles that they must play in this area. They are responsible for creating and enforcing processes that would promote safety, and implementing preventive measures. The bottom line is that continuous research and reform of the health care system is of great importance, before the menace of medical errors and poor patient safety could be resolved.