PHC seals 1,400 clinics over three months

These include illegal treatments centers, homeopathic clinics, hakeem centres and medical stores

LAHORE: The Punjab Healthcare Commission has closed down 1,398 clinics of quacks around Punjab over the last three months and started proceeding against them.

In January, 326 clinics were closed down, while those numbers were 501 in February and 571 in March. These included illegal treatments centers, homeopathic clinics, hakeem centres and medical stores selling drugs without prescriptions.

According to a PHC spokesman, the commission’s teams sealed off 116 businesses of quacks in the provincial metropolis, Faisalabad and Jhang districts over the last week. They were categorised as 50 general clinics of quacks, 30 illegal dentists, 20 hakeems and nine bonesetters. Also, three medical stores and homoeopathic clinics each were closed down apart from a laboratory.

In Lahore, the PHC teams sealed another 30 illegal treatment centres in different parts of the city. These included 19 general quacks, six hakeems, three dentists and two bonesetters. In the Faisalabad district and three tehsils, 45 quacks’ businesses were closed, which included 22 general ‘practitioners’, 16 fake dentists, four one bone-setters, two hakeems and a laboratory. In Jhang’s Shorkot tehsil and other small towns, 41 fake treatment centres were closed down which included 12 hakeems, 11 fake dentists, nine general quacks and three bonesetters, medical stores and homoeopaths each.

The spokesperson added the commission sealed more than 8,400 illegal clinics and imposed fines amounting to Rs65.55 million over the last two years.

Moreover, PHC registered and licenced more than 41,000 healthcare establishments (HCEs) and trained 16,288 health professionals to implement minimum service delivery standards (MSDS). According to a press release issued on Monday, the PHC has given licences to more than 27,000 HCEs in pursuance of its mandate under the Punjab Healthcare Commission Act 2010.

In order to improve the working of these HCEs, the commission conducted 10,000 inspections which included 5,747 pre-assessment and 4,560 regular inspections. The PHC also developed MSDS for 12 major kinds of HCEs, while standards for dialysis centres, MCH centres, psychiatric and addiction treatment facilities are in the final stages.

For the capacity building of health professionals and implementation of the MSDS, the commission arranged about 400 training sessions for 16,300 health professionals of more than 12,000 HCEs. During the training, the participants are also encouraged to develop an MSDS implementation plan for health facilities. Also, 225 surveyors have been trained.

Moreover, the PHC received 1,300 complaints of medical negligence and only 179 of these are under active investigation, while the rest were decided in due course.

“Seeing its success in the implementation of its mandate, other provinces and Islamabad Capital Authority are in the process of replicating the PHC Act and model. A few consultative meetings have been held with the provinces and the commission is fully supporting them in implementing the reform agenda,” concluded the PHC spokesperson.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 10^th, 2018.