Australia's healthcare safety watchdog says "an unacceptable proportion" of hospital admissions are associated with an "adverse event" such as a botched surgery or medication mishap, yet the public is not told where they occur.

In the worst cases, called "sentinel events", patients die or suffer a permanent disability, often due to an error on the part of treating doctors and nurses - such as operating on the wrong person or body part, leaving a surgical instrument behind or transfusing with the wrong blood type.

Public health and consumer advocates say Australians should have access to hospitals' complication rates. Credit:Nic Walker

"In our view, they're wholly preventable," Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care chief executive Debora Picone told the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

According to the Productivity Commission's 2019 report on public services, dozens of such mishaps occur in Australia's public hospitals each year - but the details of which facilities they happened in are not made public.