Lex Maria Explained

Lex Maria is the colloquial name for the mandatory reporting in Chapter 3 Paragraph 5 of the Swedish Patient Safety Law (Patientsäkerhetslagen). The law requires that a care taker report to the Health and Social Care Inspectorate events that could have caused or have caused serious injury to the patient.[1] The name originates from an incident in 1936 when four patients at Maria hospital in Stockholm died after being injected with disinfectant (mercury oxycyanide) instead of anesthetic.[2]

References

  1. Web site: Lex Maria. www.socialstyrelsen.se. National Board of Health and Welfare (Sweden). sv. 2016-06-05. https://web.archive.org/web/20160605195137/http://www.socialstyrelsen.se/lexmaria. 2016-06-05. dead.
  2. News: Fyra dödande injektioner ledde fram till Lex Maria. Wennergren. Göran. 2005. Läkartidningen. sv. Four fatal injections led to Lex Maria. 5 June 2016.