Quality healthcare: FCCPC domesticates PBoRs at ATBUTH

The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) says it has domesticated the Patients’ Bill of Rights (PBoRs) at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital, Bauchi (ATBUTH).

Speaking at the event on Wednesday, the Executive Vice Chairman of the commission, Mr Babatunde Irukera, said the objective was to promote quality healthcare services at the hospital.

Irukera said that the bill is in furtherance of the commission’s commitment to quality patient care in the country.

He said that the right to health consists of freedoms and entitlements.

“Freedoms to control bodily integrity and the right to be free from non-consensual medical treatment and experiments.

“Entitlement to the right to a system of health protection, preventive measures, treatments and control of diseases and access to essential medicine,” he said.

He said that the subject of rights in healthcare is relevant today as it conformed to the global movement towards Universal Health Coverage, which requires that health services are available for all in the first instance.

He commended the management of ATBUTH as a healthcare services provider that evolved from being a general hospital to become a teaching hospital.

The FCCPC boss said the management team looked much like how a hospital management should be.

He said that the hospital could do more on the domestication of the bill.

“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 where they feel welcomed and cared for rather than where everything is upside down.

“I think patients should be treated in a far more superior way than what we do now,” Irukera said.

Responding, The Chief Medical Director of the Hospital, Prof. Yusuf Jibrin, said the facility had already started domesticating the bill.

“We hold the view that it will go a long way to provide patients with access to healthcare services.

“Our staff had been trained on rights of the patients and adherence to the discipline and regulations of the bill,” Jibrin said.

He said that the facility needed more equipment and a conducive atmosphere to provide quality healthcare services to patients.