KARACHI, Nov 1: The Sindh health department, which has remained unable to get its proposed set of laws for vigilance and control of private hospitals approved from the provincial assembly, has now shut its ears to the demand of establishing a health commission and appointment of health commissioners, it emerged on Tuesday.

Sources in the provincial health department said that the authorities had shown some seriousness to make laws based on a set of proposals, jointly submitted by different associations of doctors some months back, in the wake of repeated incidents of manhandling of doctors.

Doctors had demanded the establishment of a health commission and appointment of health commissioners to ensure safety of patients and doctors as well as service standards of public and private healthcare institutions across the province.

However, the sources added, for last about five months, there had been no meeting between the relevant authorities and the representatives of doctors. They said that doctors wanted that there should be some laws envisaging licensing of both public and private healthcare centres through the healthcare commission, which should be empowered to take cognisance of violations and impose fine on healthcare providers.

The need for legislation was felt earlier this year following the arrest of some doctors by police on the basis of FIRs in January and manhandling of a couple of doctors and paramedics at private health centre on M.A. Jinnah Road in November 2010. At that time, they had demanded legislation to end what they said whimsical violence and the practice of lodging criminal cases against doctors for alleged medical negligence.

Speaking to Dawn on Tuesday, Pakistan Medical Association’s Karachi chapter president Dr Idrees Adhi said that doctors had extended their support to the government to prepare the legal framework envisaging the accountability and prosecution of doctors and healthcare providers only after fulfilling some fact-finding exercises.

After some initial meetings with the then secretary of the health department, doctors had become optimistic that the government would finally devise some statutory mechanism not only to address the grievances of doctors and patients but also to ensure payment to the victims of any delinquent act of the health service providers, he said.“Now it appears to me that the health department is sitting on the draft legal document due to lack of political will to streamline the affairs of government and private healthcare providers”.

Highlighting salient features of the proposed legislation related to the formation of the health commission, Dr Adhi said that it was planned that the commission should have powers to deal with public, private, non-profit organisations, charitable hospital, trust hospital, semi-government and autonomous healthcare organisations without any discrimination.

He added that under the proposed laws the healthcare providers might be held negligent only on one of the following two grounds: firstly that a health professional does not possess the requisite skills which he professes to have and secondly that he does not exercise with reasonable competence, in the given cases, the skill that he has.

Dr Adhi said that both the public and private healthcare centres would also be required to undergo a third-party performance audit already notified or any other parameters prescribed from time to time by the government.

“The commission shall maintain record of all healthcare service providers; grant, revoke and renew licences to persons involved in the provision of the healthcare services and to vary terms and conditions purposes thereof. It will also monitor and regulate the quality and standards of the healthcare services being run by the government and will enquire and investigate into maladministration, malpractice and failures in the provision of healthcare services and subsequently issue advices and orders.”

He said the proposed commission would issue guidelines, instructions, regulations and directives to healthcare service providers; go for grading of the healthcare establishments; and take necessary steps to ban quackery across the province.

The commission would also take cognisance of any case of harassment of healthcare providers or damage to healthcare establishment’s property and might refer such cases to a competent forum and impose fine as deemed appropriate, Dr Adhi said.

Besides, the commission though a written order appoint an inspection team of highly qualified experts in the relevant field to perform the functions and exercise the powers of the commission in relation to inspection under the proposed law. The commission should also have the statutory powers to order the suspension of service delivery organisations, Dr Adhi said, adding that there was an immediate need to improve the quality of healthcare services and ban quackery in Sindh in all its forms and manifestation.