Abstract

Background: Surgical Safety Checklist was given as thesis to postgraduate student with the aim to popularize its routine use in our hospital as WHO surgical safety check list has become integral part of  “Safe Surgery Saves Lives” initiative. This survey was done with the aim to know the actual usage of Surgical Safety Checklist by all the stake holders working in department of surgery and for quality improvement purposes, but are we serious?

Material & Methods: With the idea in mind we had conducted a study to know about the awareness and practical use of WHO surgical safety checklist among surgeons working in all the six units in department of surgery in MMIMSR, Mullana, Ambala .Printed proforma with a set of questions was given to all the consultants, senior resident and postgraduates, the result was analysed.

Result: All except 1 out of 56 participants of the study group had heard about the safety checklist and although 17 out of 56 said they are following the checklist regularly but 51 out of 56 also answered that they will start using Surgical Safety Checklist from the next patient, this makes their response doubtful regarding actual usage of safety checklist in their surgical practice.

Conclusion: There is an urgent need to see that surgical safety checklist are regularly used by all the surgeons which appears can only be done if medical council of India issues some directions or orders to this effect as other methods have proved futile in our own setup as we don’t have safety culture.

Keywords: Checklist; Safe surgery; Safety culture.