Better health standards: Regulatory bill for capital on cards

Health ministry has taken inspiration from Punjab Health Care Commission

ISLAMABAD: In an attempt to put relevant restrictions on public- private hospitals, clinics and doctors in the capital, the Ministry of National Health Services Regulation and Coordination (NHSRC) is drafting a health regulatory bill.

The ministry’s director programmes Dr Malik Muhammad Safi told The Express Tribune that the bill aims to specifically regulate private practitioners and quacks because there are no such regulatory provisions in Islamabad.

“In absence of a regulatory body, there have been unchecked cases of lady health workers handling complicated deliveries privately when as per rules they are only allowed to handle normal cases,” he said.

NHSRC has taken inspiration from Punjab Health Care Commission and is in process of drafting bill on similar lines.

Speaking in detail about salient features of the bill, he said it would regulate key problem areas like ensuring adequate services in public hospitals and defining standard operating procedures for public and private practitioners.

The bill would also define rules and conditions for penalising doctors or staff if found violating the rules. “The regulatory bill will encourage hospitals and clinics to implement ISO 001 rules which are international health and safety standards for work places,” Safi explained.

Another key agenda of the bill is to ease out complicated and often confusing flow of command due to presence of various regulatory bodies in Islamabad like Capital Administrative Development Division, Capital Development Authority and Interior Ministry.

It further aims to register all private clinics and practitioners and introduce a proper screening mechanism for blood banks in order to ensure safe transfusion to patients. Similarly a death occurrence mechanism will be devised to keep a proper record of how and why a patient died.

The bill will also make it mandatory for the regulatory body to conduct regular health audits of public and private hospitals. In addition, quality regulation and pricing mechanism for drugs being provided by public hospitals and private pharmaceutical companies will also be part of the bill.

Islamabad Capital Territory Administration (ICT) District Health Officer Dr Muhammad Azhar Khan said it is high time a regulatory body should be made.

“Currently 70 per cent of health budget is spent on paying salaries leaving a negligible amount for other provisions,” Azhar said.

According to Deputy Commissioner Mushtaq Ahmed, the administration has been facing legal complications while conducting raids on doctors and illegal practitioners owing to lack of a proper law.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 9^th, 2015.