Patients have rights to be treated fairly in hospitals ― FCCPC boss

Executive Vice chairman, Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), Chairman, Babatunde Irukera has said that domestication of the Patients Bill of Rights in nation’s health institutions will ensure better quality health care delivery in the country.

Speaking with journalists in Ilorin on Monday after visits to public and private health institutions in Kwara state for domestication of the patients bill of rights in the facilities, FCCPC boss also said that domestication of patients rights in nation’s health institutions would go a long way to instil confidence in patients.

“There are certain standards and expectations from the medical practitioners and obligations of the patients. It is no use having structures with medical equipment when patients are not treated with empathy. People want a place when they feel welcomed and cared for rather than where everything is upside down. I think patients should be treated in a far superior way than what we do now,” he said.

Irukera, who said that the Patients Bill of Rights is about aggregation of rights of patients and the medical practitioners, lamented that many patients do not know their rights, “Hence the need for consumer education and work with health care institutions to make them sign and domesticate and display the rights.”

He also said that people may not have rights of control over exodus of medical doctors out of the country or state of infrastructure in the nation’s hospitals, adding that But of Rights of patients, people should have rights over rights of patients.

He said that such complications arising from doctors/nurses relationship, palpable acrimony among health care personnel, issues on labour and strikes should not affect rights of patients.

“It should be about responsibility and not superiority. There should be mutual respect because patients are the victims of the acrimony, e.g. in strike actions usually embarked upon by medical practitioners etc. Thus, bill of rights of patients was introduced. Patients have fundamental rights to be treated fairly and in dignified manner,” he said.

Also speaking during a courtesy visit by the FCCPC team to his office, the state deputy governor, Mr. Kayode Alabi, advised the commission to go on aggressive campaign on the Patients Bill of Rights for effective implementation, adding that it should also put people on ground to monitor its effectiveness, “Or else nothing may be achieved. The need to work on our mindset. We need to care about our rights: doctors and patients.”

The deputy governor pledged that the state government would partner with the commission, saying that the state government placed premium on health care and education.

Also, the chairman, medical advisory council (CMAC), University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH), Dr. Louis Odegha, on behalf of the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the teaching Professor Abdulla Dasilva Yussuf, said that the facility supports the Patients Bill of Rights in the Servicom.

The CMAC, who said that the staff of the teaching hospital had been trained on rights of patients, added that billboards and other media campaign activities had been done to stimulate people, saying, “it has to be a continuum. I also teach medical students at 400L on rights and importance of patients rights.

“We have domesticated patients human rights here. We hold the view that it will go a long way to instil confidence in patients,” he said.

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