Should we care about the oversight of health care in The Bahamas?

by Leandra Esfakis

In 1998 Parliament seemed to think so. It passed an act called the Hospitals and Healthcare Facilities Act, to regulate private hospitals, clinics and "health care facilities". The Act created a Board to carry out the functions contemplated by the Act. The Board should be "...satisfied that the hospital or health care facility would be operating in the interest of the public health or in a manner that is not injurious to public health."

One of its chief responsibilities is to investigate complaints from the public, but it has no record of ever doing so. Hospitals/clinics are by law required to submit notices of fatalities on their premises, but it appears this does not happen.

But the chairman of the Board is on record as stating that the Board does not want to be bothered with investigations of complaints. He also says that the legal requirement for official notification of hospital deaths is "antiquated and unnecessary".

Visit the Bahamas Patient Advocacy web site at this link...

The Board wants Parliament to repeal those provisions. In other words, it wants private health care facilities to be deregulated.

The question for us as citizens/consumers of health care services:

Do we want accountability from our health care providers? Do we believe that the Board should do its job in protecting the public interest ?

This may require amendments to improve certain provisions of the Act. But it appears the Board wants those same provisions removed.

In a modern democratic society, no group of persons or institutions should be allowed to function beyond the reach of the law, particularly when it is a matter of life and death.

Lord Woolf, who headed a law reform commission in Britain in 2001 stated:

"It is unwise to place any profession or other body providing services to the public on a pedestal where their actions cannot be subject to close scrutiny. The greater the power the body has, the more important is this need."

Health Care facilities offer services which give them the power of life and death over their patients. There is no greater power one human being holds over another.

This petition calls for accountability in the exercise of that power. It calls for the Government to protect the public's interest in the safe delivery of health care.

Sign the petition at this link...

Visit the Bahamas Patient Advocacy web site at this link...