most private health institutions.
There is no quality control in terms of conducting diagnostic and therapeutic procedures in properly sterilised manner that is the major cause of hepatitis B and C.Most private hospitals and health centres do not have properly staffed and equipped Coronary Care and Intensive Care units, yet major surgeries are performed there.
When things go wrong, the patients are horridly transported to a public sector tertiary care hospital in private vehicles as these health institutions do not have ambulances.Most private hospitals don’t have the facility for safe disposal of hospital waste, putting at risk the whole community. This should be a major cause of concern for the government when reforming the healthcare services in the province.
As private hospitals are run as businesses, the patients are brought there from the public sector hospitals for surgeries.The government has put health sector reforms on its priority list. It is believed that legislation in this regard would be introduced soon.
The passage of the Health Institutions Reforms Bill would be a litmus test of the commitment of the government and its lawmakers.It is feared that lobbies of doctors are so strong that they can influence people who have the power to make changes in the proposed draft law to their advantage or delay the process and render the bill ineffective.
So far the government seems firm on its obligation to reform health sector come what may.Currently, people knock at the doors of elected representatives to seek treatment at the public sector hospitals. Some of them might prefer status quo so that people should come to them for help.
In the proposed draft law, doctors in public sector will be given a choice to provide paid patient service at the public sector hospital or at their private facility.This would revitalise the public sector health institutions and the hospitals would become alive in the evenings too.
It will provide another option for paid healthcare services and encourage healthy competition between public and private sector. The ultimate winner would be the patient, the care providers and the institutions.
The proposed law also gives more weight to merit and competence which is another reason it would succeed and achieve the desired goals of improving patient care and healthcare services.
The success of the reforms will put private sector under strain for some time as far as human resource is concerned.They shall accept this challenge as an opportunity and come out with plans to end their dependency on public sector employees.
This would also help stop brain drain from the province. If one can make reasonable living at home, why would one go anywhere else? It will also address the issue of unemployment of healthcare workers to a certain extent.