ABSTRACT
A patient who had been admitted with a swelling on the head, and who only required nursing and medication, was wheeled into theatre to have brain surgery. It was only hours into the surgery that the neurosurgeon discovered that there was nothing wrong with the brain of the patient, and the mistake was discovered – they had the wrong patient. The journey to realising the right to the highest attainable standard of health in Kenya begun partly by including the right within the Constitution of Kenya 2010 and partly by adopting a governance model that devolved health services to county governments. Patient safety is an integral component of both the right to health and of health systems governance. A simple definition of patient safety is ‘the avoidance, prevention and amelioration of adverse outcomes or injuries stemming from the process of healthcare.’ Current discourse on patient safety needs to take into account the context within which it is being applied.
