Daily Times

LAHORE: The Punjab Healthcare Commission (PHC) continues its crackdown against quacks across the province and sealed about 8,200 businesses of quacks. Fine of more than Rs 63.12 million has been imposed so far, till Tuesday.

The PHC has registered and licensed more than 41,000 healthcare establishments (HCEs), and trained 16,288 health professionals of over 12,000 HCEs to implement the Minimum Service Delivery Standards (MSDS).

According to details, in pursuance of its mandate as per the Punjab Healthcare Commission Act 2010, the PHC has given licenses to more than 27,000 HCEs, while registering about 41,000. In order to improve working of the HCEs, and provision of better healthcare facilities to the masses, the PHC has carried out over 10,000 inspections, which includes 5,747 pre-assessment and 4,560 regular inspections.

The PHC has also developed MSDS for 12 major kinds of HCEs, while Standards for the dialysis centres, MCH centres, psychiatric and addiction treatment facilities are in their final stages.

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

Moreover, the PHC has received about 1,300 complaints alleging medical negligence in treatment, and only 179 are under active investigation, while the rest have been 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 conducted with the provinces, and the Commission is supporting them fully in implementing the reform agenda,” said the spokesperson of the PHC.

Published in Daily Times, March 28^th 2018.