KARACHI: Sindh Health Care Commission (SHCC) has intensified its efforts to address concerns regarding the quality of services and patient safety in both public and private healthcare facilities.
Dr. Ahson Qavi Siddiqi, CEO of SHCC, emphasized the significant health burden caused by the compromised quality of care in these facilities. In response, SHCC has taken proactive measures to promote quality care and patient safety. Provisional license has been awarded to 650 public and private healthcare facilities by SHCC.
In order to ensure compliance with quality standards, SHCC has conducted extensive inspections at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC), one of the largest hospitals in the country for the process of a regular license. Dr. Siddiqi commended the cooperation and commitment demonstrated by the JPMC leadership and team during the inspections, highlighting their determination to address identified gaps.
He further added that under the National Health Support Project, funded by the World Bank, SHCC is actively engaged in strengthening the services of the largest publicly funded network operating under the Primary Healthcare Initiative (PPHI). In this project SHCC will introduce the health facility readiness checklist and hundreds of facilities will be inspected and supported to enhance their standards to get a license from SHCC.
To gain deeper insights into the challenges faced in the field, Dr. Siddiqi visited multiple facilities in the Hyderabad division that are managed by PPHI. Furthermore, SHCC has initiated collaborations with large public-funded medical institutes, notably the Gambat Institute of Medical Sciences and Syed Abdullah Shah Institute of Medical Science Sehwan, to enhance their capacity and facilitate their licensing process under SHCC.
SHCC has also issued statistics from Jan-June 2023. In continuation of its efforts to control quackery practices in Sindh SHCC has conducted inspections in Sukkur, Larkana, Mirpurkhas, Shaheed Benazirabad, Hyderabad and Karachi. In these inspections, the teams have inspected 2868 hospitals/clinics and sealed 989 quackery outlets, issued warnings to 1000 number of outlets for non-compliance, while 879 outlets were found in compliance.
During Jan-June 2023, SHCC has trained 192 GP clinics/hospitals, 64 Tibb-Unani matabs and 93 homeopathic clinics on Minimum Service Delivery Standards.
During this period, SHCC has issued 477 Registration Certificates, 54 Provisional Licenses and 11 Regular licenses to private and public healthcare facilities in Sindh.
SHCC has also conducted 41 inspections of hospitals for complaint received and 45 hearings against complaints conducted. SHCC has also conducted 07 awareness sessions in hospitals to emphasize complaint mechanism and also introduced 16 complaint desks in various hospitals including Sindh Govt. of infectious diseases, branches of LRBT in Sindh, Shamsi Hospital, Hashmanis Hospital and others.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023