CPC Moves to Control Doctor-Patient Interaction

By Modupe Gbadeyanka

A standing committee has been established to come up with an acceptable guide to regulate dealings between patients and medical doctors in the country.

The panel was set up during a meeting between the Consumer Protection Council (CPC) and the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) in Abuja recently.

Members of the committee would be drawn from both the CPC and the NMA and they advance the finalisation of the document and expand key areas of collaboration for the promotion of high standards of care and patients’ protection.

Outcome of the document would form a guide to be called the Patients’ Bill of Rights and will identify rights and privileges in a patient-care giver relationship for the protection of consumers.

Director General of the CPC, Mr Babatunde Irukera, who received President of the NMA, Professor Mike Ogirima and his team to his office, said, “We need to ensure people know their rights – the right to information, proper explanation of their medical situation in a language they understand; the right to control decision-making with respect to their treatment regimen; the right to know when to, where to and how to secure a second opinion, if desired.”

He asserted that the introduction of the Bill of Rights in Nigeria is long overdue, noting that “nothing improves standards more than consumers demanding it and asking questions.”

Mr Irukera and the NMA president underscored the urgency of the need for the Guide when they mutually set a June 2017 deadline for a final draft of the Bill of Rights, just as they also agreed that a short form of the Bill of Rights should be displayed at all public and private healthcare facilities in the country.

He informed the visiting NMA’s delegation that, “Your industry does not permit any error. The legal industry to which I belong provides successful appeals as many other industries also have built-in redundancies; this is not the case in medicine, which although investigative, requires absolute precision.”

“It is tragic that doctors can go on strike. I recognise the fundamentals that are subjects of some of the strikes. However, I have never been able to reconcile the potential and irreversible loss that can and does happen when these strikes occur.

“One needless permanent injury or death is one too much. We must not trivialize life. I think the rightful partner in reinforcing that message of sanctity of life is the Nigerian Medical Association. For many, saving lives is a motto, but in medicine, it is an obligation,” he added.

The DG also raised the possibility of the association establishing a Victims’ Compensation Fund from which aggrieved patients or their families may receive some succour for professional malpractice.

In his remarks, the NMA President also called on CPC to support re-orientation retreats for the association’s members and other health workers in order to remind them of their sworn oath, which he said “the trends in the society are fast eroding on a continuous basis”.

Similarly, Professor Ogirima also thanked and sought CPC support with respect to the on-going advocacy to make health insurance universal and compulsory.