Health facilities reluctant to adhere to Licensing Act — MoPH Director of Standards

Nov 28, 2018 News

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Director of Standards and Technical Services within the Public Health Ministry, Dr. Julian Amsterdam, has noted that despite a law that clearly spells out the need for licensing, several health facilities have been reluctant to adhere to the Health Facilities Licensing Act of 2007.
Dr. Amsterdam was at the time responding to concerns raised over health facilities operating outside the ambit of the law. The issue was recently highlighted by former Minister of Health Dr. Leslie Ramsammy.
Dr. Ramsammy had accused the Public Health Ministry of adopting a nonchalant approach to licensing hospitals and medical centres, although the law stipulates that every health facility operating in Guyana should be licensed.
The former Minister noted that the whole idea of a licensing process was to lift standards and to protect patients.
As a consequence of the non-issuance, Dr. Ramsammy explained that many health facilities operated by the government and the private sector are operating illegally. He said that the law permits the Ministry to send inspectors at any time.
“Usually, the inspectors will flag certain deficiencies and a provisional license would be issued, until the flagged deficiencies were remedied, then a full license was issued.
“Each year, therefore, hospitals and laboratories operated with either a provisional or a full license.

“For example, when I was Minister, a team visited a private hospital where a patient’s family queried the high bill they received for a minor surgical intervention. The patient’s bill was close to $800,000 for the amputation of a toe. “The clinical audit found that the bill was inflated and the patient’s bill was adjusted.
“But the inspecting team also queried a number of actions of the hospital pertaining to quality of care.” Ramsammy had explained.
Contrary to the contention of the former Health Minister, Dr. Amsterdam said that it is the health facilities that are responsible for the late issuance of licenses.
“Many health facilities have submitted their documents “very late” for processing. More than 30 of the 55 entities approved for licensing submitted their documents between October and November,” Amsterdam confirmed.
Dr. Julian Amsterdam said the tardiness of the applicants, coupled with the numerous flaws in their documentation which must be corrected, means that the process of licensing approval is “still being finalised” coming to the close of the year.
Nevertheless, the MOPH Director of Standards has been forcing many institutions to adhere to the law.
The Standards and Technical Services, the Central Board of Health and other Public Health agencies are in a flurry of end-of-year activities to help regularise these vital health institutions.
Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Dr. Shamdeo Persaud noted that the Public Health Ministry has commenced processing applications to license health facilities for 2019.
Persaud said so far “four completed applications were received for consideration for licensing in 2019” up to last week.
According to the CMO, for this year 55 health facilities “were recommended for licensing by the Central Board of Health (CBH) on submission of Inspection Report and Score Sheets from each facility”.
The 55 institutions, the highest number in the past eight years, include 10 public hospitals, four private hospitals, 10 medical laboratories, four optical centres, 17 health centres, three medical/surgical centres, two dialysis centres, two nursing homes, two imaging centres and one radiation therapy centre.
Persaud said the 55 entities “were invited to complete the payments of all fees before the licence can be issued by the Minister of Public Health”to operate by November 2018.
He said licensing caters for health facilities operating as Blood Bank, Diagnostic and Imaging Centres, Dialysis Centres and Dialysis Clinics; Health Centres; Hospitals; Human Tissue Banks including Blood Banks; Maternity Centres; Medical Laboratories; Nursing Homes; Oncology Clinics and Radiotherapy Centres; Pathology & Clinical Laboratories and Surgical Centres.
According to the CMO, 12 health facilities were “recommended for provisional licensing and two facilities were reviewed and upgraded to provide additional health services to the public.”
Dr. Persaud stressed that health facilities covered by this process “are required to develop and maintain acceptable standards of health…and ensure that a total number of 26 essential requirements and an additional 64 areas of competence for health care delivery sites,” are adhered to.
“The Public Health Ministry provide supportive guidance in a wide range of areas including waste management, sanitation and hygiene, maintenance of records, licensing and competence training of professionals, quality assurance and management,” Dr. Persaud said.

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