{"id":98329,"date":"2026-07-06T16:35:26","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T16:35:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/98329\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T16:35:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T16:35:26","slug":"childrens-hospital-becomes-first-to-adopt-marthas-rule-in-switzerland-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/98329\/","title":{"rendered":"Children’s hospital becomes first to adopt Martha’s Rule in Switzerland"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Martha's<\/p>\n

Martha’s Rule is to be formally introduced at Lucerne Children\u2019s Hospital <\/p>\n

Keystone-SDA <\/p>\n

Following a pilot phase, the Children\u2019s Hospital of Central Switzerland is the first institution in the country to introduce Martha\u2019s Rule on a permanent basis. This means parents will have a greater say when they have serious concerns about their child\u2019s health.\n<\/p>\n

Listen to the article <\/p>\n

Listening the article <\/p>\n

Toggle language selector <\/p>\n

English (US) <\/p>\n

English (British) <\/p>\n

Generated with artificial intelligence. <\/p>\n

This content was published on <\/p>\n

July 6, 2026 – 14:30\n<\/p>\n

The Children\u2019s Hospital, located in Lucerne, is the first of its kind to have adopted the initiative on a trial basis and is now embedding it permanently, a spokesperson told news agency Keystone-SDA on Monday, confirming a report that first appeared in the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper.<\/p>\n

Martha\u2019s Rule is an initiative designed to improve patient safety. It gives patients and their relatives the right to request an immediate, independent medical assessment at any time of the day or night if they feel the patient\u2019s condition is deteriorating and the hospital staff treating them are not responding adequately.<\/p>\n

\n More<\/p>\n

\"Zurich<\/p>\n

More <\/p>\n

University Hospital Zurich confirms serious errors in heart surgery <\/p>\n

\n

This content was published on <\/p>\n

May 5, 2026 <\/p>\n

The University Hospital Zurich has admitted to serious errors in cardiac surgery from 2016 to 2020. A report documents dozens of deaths. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Read more: University Hospital Zurich confirms serious errors in heart surgery
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

The rule is named after the British woman Martha Mills. She died in hospital in 2021 from septic shock. Her parents had noticed life-threatening symptoms. However, the doctors treating her ignored their concerns. A coroner later concluded that had the doctors listened to the parents and transferred Martha to the intensive care unit in time, she would have survived.<\/p>\n

Clearly defined escalation procedure<\/p>\n

\u201cMartha\u2019s Rule enhances patient safety and parental involvement,\u201d said the children\u2019s hospital spokesperson. Parents often spend the most amount of time with their child and frequently notice changes at a very early stage. \u201cWith this clearly defined escalation procedure, we ensure that such observations are systematically recorded and, where necessary, independently reviewed,\u201d the spokesperson added.<\/p>\n

The trial phase yielded very positive results: around 40 Level 1 and Level 2 consultations were initiated. In these situations, parents expressed a sense of unease or concern that their child\u2019s health was deteriorating. In two cases, an independent assessment by the designated treatment team was also requested.<\/p>\n

+ Euthanasia set to become possible in Lucerne hospitals<\/a><\/p>\n

The pilot phase confirmed that Martha\u2019s Rule provides a sensible and practical framework for incorporating parents\u2019 perspectives into treatment even more systematically.<\/p>\n

The Children\u2019s Hospital of Central Switzerland originally launched the pilot phase in response to a fatality in February 2025, when a child died unexpectedly and the mother levelled accusations at the hospital.<\/p>\n

Translated from German\/sub-editing gw<\/p>\n

Articles in this story <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Martha’s Rule is to be formally introduced at Lucerne Children\u2019s Hospital Keystone-SDA Following a pilot phase, the Children\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[101,9508,1002,100,103,3381,17],"class_list":["post-98329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-switzerland","tag-article","tag-beat-prevention","tag-health","tag-latest-news","tag-production-type-deepl-autotranslation","tag-society","tag-switzerland"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116874007378832065","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}