Position
Statement on the Use of the Word “HOSPITALS” by UNAPH
Contemporary English defines a Hospital as an institution providing medical and surgical treatment
and nursing care for sick or injured people and, a clinic
is a healthcare facility that is
primarily devoted to the diagnosis and care of outpatients.
When using African dialects, these
two words often do not change, and a plain health consumer rarely distinguishes
the two definitions when seeking for health services. If we go by African and
Ugandan standards, most health clinics offer inpatient services which are meant
for a hospital. Uganda National Association of Private Hospitals (UNAPH) is a
problem-based initiative where by the time it was founded (2006) there was no
umbrella body for independent private health clinics and hospitals of which we
had to use a conclusive word of Hospitals
so to articulately promote our cause and by then we could not grade big
hospital or small hospital or clinic because we were much focused on solving
the problem than sizes and ownership of health facilities. Further to this, the current government health
administration literature does not have clear guidelines on classification and
grading of health facilities in the private sector and beside, UNAPH’s
membership focuses on both private health clinics and private hospitals. It is also an international standard
practice for health trade associations to generally to their industry members
as hospitals without going in to details.
Patient safety is one of the urgent areas that need consideration National Wide. Prior to that there are efforts that have been undertaken to avoid errors especially for chronic cases (HIV/AIDS) and not for other cases. Limited efforts are already observed in the country due to lack of supporting policies. Often there is no legal protection for the health workers who would wish to attempt to report errors and hence they are hindered due to the legal implication.
ReplyDeleteIn 2010-2011, Uganda Catholic Medical Bureau laughed to patient safety initiatives, the incident / error reporting and surgical safety checklist. The total numbers of 128 incident reports were submitted in period covering August 2010 to May 2011, from four hospitals. Most of the forms (98% forms) were submitted by the nurses less by the physicians. In addition, the forms showed, as observed that nurses reported at least one incident or adverse error, or near miss than the physicians / doctors and their senior counterparts. it was discovered the safety culture was one the main hindrance. This promoted us to start the HOSPITAL SURVEY ON PATIENT SAFETY CULTURE in 2012. We need to know to the culture. The results yield the punitive culture and lack of leadership focus on patient safety were the main factor for promoting patient safety. So it requires continuous sensitization and advocating for patient rights, Patient safety Policy et al.
We need data to speak about the problem of Patient safety both in private and public health facilities. Unfortunately, National wide, there is limited documentation about Patient safety. In addition the National Health Management Information System (HMIS) has limited indicators to stimulate the report of mishaps, near misses, minor and major errors. Currently we don't have a uniform checklist or tool for monitoring eg errors for patients who undergo surgery “like the WHO surgical safety checklist" and tool for report errors as part of the HMIS.
We need to team up for patient safety in Uganda.
By Monicah Luwedde
In 2010-2011, Uganda Catholic Medical Bureau launched two patient safety initiatives, the incident / error reporting and surgical safety checklist.
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