Do you believe that Bahamian healthcare services and patient survival rates can be improved?
Then join in sending the message to our government, that the Hospitals and HealthCare Facilities Board needs to do its job or be replaced by a truly independent and impartial healthcare commission that will protect the interests and lives of the Bahamian people.
You can sign the petition online here www.petitiononline.com/lesfakis/petition-sign.html?
To Prime Minister Hubert Ingfraham and Health Minister Dr Hubert Minnis:
Parliament created the Hospitals and Healthcare Facilities Board in
1998 to license private hospitals and clinics. One of its chief
responsibilities is to investigate complaints from the public, but it
has no record of ever doing so.
Specifically, a formal complaint regarding the death of a patient
at Doctors Hospital in 2002 has been wilfully ignored by the Board
under three successive ministers of health.
According to the Act, the object of the Board is to ensure the
delivery of quality healthcare to the Bahamian public. In fulfillment
of this obligation the board has a duty to investigate fatalities at
the hospitals and clinics which it licenses.
Despite this obligation the Board has claimed over the past four
years that it does not have the means to conduct an investigation and
the chairman of the Board, Dr Kirk Culmer, is on record as stating that
the legal requirement for official notification of hospital deaths was
"antiquated and unnecessary". He insists that regulatory authorities do
not need to know how many people die in a healthcare facility.
Not only has the Hospitals Board never investigated any complaint -
and now explicitly refuses to do so, even in the face of ministerial
directives - it also wants that power revoked. In other words, it wants
private clinics to be totally deregulated.
This petition calls on you - our elected leaders - to ensure
accountability under the law for citizens accessing the healthcare
sector.
It is a fundamental principal that every human being has a right to
life. We urge you to ensure that healthcare regulations are enforced to
improve patient survival rates. The Board's legal and professional
obligations must be carried out so that the right to life of Bahamian
citizens can be protected.
Alternatively, we advocate the establishment of a national
Healthcare Commission with the power to investigate complaints from the
private or public healthcare sectors, and to implement measures to
address failings in the delivery of healthcare.
For the sake of independence, impartiality and the public interest, we
also advocate that a member of the proposed Healthcare Commission be
appointed from an internationally recognized medical accreditation
organization.
My husband died as a result of negligence at a hospital.
Posted by: Marsha Carroll | August 19, 2008 at 07:01 PM