-audits to be done
Clinical audits to determine whether appropriate services are rendered to patients at private medical institutions will now be undertaken in light of many complaints received about exorbitant prices being charged by those facilities, Minister of Health, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy says.
“Clinical audits will now become a fact of life for the private institutions” Dr. Ramsammy declared at a press conference held at the Ministry’s Boardroom yesterday. He noted that the Health Facilities Licensing Act became law last Tuesday with the regulations coming into effect on May 1.
The Health Minister while commending the private hospitals for providing expanding services and improving steadily, cautioned them about the high cost of services. He stated that the ministry was inundated by calls and complaints regarding this issue. Noting that the ministry could not tell the institutions what to charge, he pointed out “we do have a say about whether appropriate services are being delivered”.
Dr. Ramsammy said that while particular charges were not being questioned, the question was whether they were doing it as a commercial service rather than a health service. “Patients are now complaining that they are being charged for services that are not necessary”, he said. To illustrate his point, he related two cases for a similar procedure that he had noted over the last week. He said that one patient at the Georgetown Public Hospital and another at a private hospital had a toe amputated. He pointed to the fact that the operation at the GPH was done free of cost while the patient at the private hospital paid $450, 000.
He said that a clinical audit is one of the things that the Ministry can now do to determine whether appropriate services were provided. The minister noted that institutions in breach of the regulations can be penalized to the extent of being denied a licence. He stated however, that he was not willing to say that the private institutions were over-billing persons “in a malicious way”.
Asked about persons opting to undergo treatment at private hospitals where there is a cost attached rather than going to public medical institutions, where the services are offered free of cost, Dr. Ramsammy said that 90% of the people seeking treatment go to the public hospital and asserted that the ministry would be happy if more persons go to the private institutions. “Go to any clinic and see where the largest number of people is”, he stated, noting that the public hospital would always have a large number of people and when this is so there is a waiting time.
