FCCPC commends ATBUTH, Bauchi, for domestication of Patients’ Bills of Rights (PBoR)

From Paul Orude Bauchi

Executive Vice Chairman of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), Babatunde Irukare has commended the management of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital, ATBUTH, Bauchi, for domesticating the Patients’ Bills of Rights (PBoR)

Irukare gave the commendation on Monday in Bauchi during the official Domestication of the PBoR by the hospital

 “I must start by thanking the Chief Medical Director, Professor Yusuf Jibrin and the leadership of the hospital for embracing the whole concept of domesticating the patients’ bill of right,” he said.

“We look forward to partnering with ATBUTH in advancing this very important aspect of your work.

“I am certain that you will begin to see the outcomes of enforcing the Patients’ Bill of rights in the feedback you get from your patients and the reputation that ultimately becomes public about your work”

He said the PBoR was not new as the rights inherent in the document had always existed.

According to him, institutions to strengthen respect for rights of patients have ether failed or omitted paying appropriate attention.

“What the FCCPC has sought to do is to reset that button and recatalyzed the process where those rights are highlighted,” he said.

“There are two sides of the divides.

“The providers and all their stakeholders within the providing community, all their collaborators and auxiliary operatives and also to the patients themselves”

He argued that the most critical component of any rights enforcement is the patient who knows his or rights and is willing to demand those rights by insisting on those rights.

“The second most important component is the provider and every operative of the providers who also knows those rights,” he stated.

He said every provider is therefore expected to recognize the obligations through those patients and set up an apparatus to respect and comply to those rights,” he said.

“If these two exist, about 80 percent of patients’ rights for the most part are already going to be complied with”

The Executive Vice Chairman also mentioned the regulatory framework that compels compliance saying failure to comply with the rights of patients has consequences that is multi-faceted.

Speaking earlier while welcoming the FCCPC team, the CMD, Professor Yusuf Jibrin Bara, said domestication of the Patients Bills of Rights by the hospital was important to its services to members of the public.

“The patient is important because without the patients we cannot be here, including the students who are here to learn,” the CMD said.

Bara said the patients are supposed to be treated as ‘kings’, adding that the management under his leadership was emphasizing that philosophy.

“I happy to tell the Executive Vice Chairman and his team that this hospital are trying its best. The staff and students are conducting themselves ethically

“Of course one of two things may happen and the management does not take it lightly.

“We do the right thing to ensure that we correct the erring staff and doing hat has shown to us that litigation has drastically reduced”

The CMD pledge the commitment of the hospital to ensure that the patients’ rights were protected and to improve on the gains made.

“We thank the Commission for coming here to domesticate these rights, he stressed

“I assure you that the staff of this hospital are ready to go in line with the items in the document and hope that these rights would be fully domesticated in this hospital”