Legislation to implement a comprehensive and effective Charter of Patients rights and Responsibilities will be presented to Parliament within a few months, Health Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva announced.
Addressing a meeting attended by about 150 representatives of healthcare professionals, health rights groups and trade unions, the Minister said, he believed such a charter was vital and urgent to restore a health service where the well-being of the patients was given top priority.
Several groups including the Sri Lanka Medical Association, the Peoples Movement for the Rights of Patients and the Law and Society Trust have already submitted draft charters. The Minister said, these and other proposals would be closely studied by a committee of experts and he would then submit the draft charter to the Parliamentary Consultative Committee on Health before it is approved and implemented. Addressing the meeting held at the Health Ministry auditorium, the Minister also assured he would take steps to introduce a constitutional amendment to make health a fundamental right of the people.
Representatives of the Attorney General’s Department and the Legal Draftsman’s department were also present at the meeting and the Minister urged them to give priority in finalizing the legislation for the Patients Charter and the Constitutional Amendment.
According to the draft submitted by the PMRP and the LST, patients’ rights refer to what is owed to the patient as a human being by the healthcare providers and the State. Assuring that the rights of patients are protected requires much more than educating policy makers and healthcare providers. It requires educating citizens about what they should expect from their governments and their healthcare providers.
The Sri Lankan national health system should put in place, systems that guarantee the rights of patients, consumers, users, family members, weak populations and ordinary people at risk.
“We are at a stage where the public will not accept that patients’ rights can be affirmed in theory, but then denied in practice, because of financial limits. Financial constraints, however justified, cannot legitimize denying or compromising patients’ rights,” the draft says.
The Charter includes the Right of Access to Healthcare Services and to Humane Treatment; Right to Information, Consent, Privacy and Confidentiality; Right to Complain and Compensation and the Right to Preventive Measures.
Meanwhile an 18-member National Standing Committee appointed to work out legislation for a National Medicinal Drugs Policy was scheduled to finalise draft legislation on Friday. But a spokesman said a dispute over the composition of the new independent National Medicinal Drugs Regulatory Authority had delayed the process.
However, the committee met again yesterday, the dispute was sorted out and the draft finalized, the spokesman said.
The Minister has assured that this legislation – intended mainly to make quality drugs available to all people at affordable prices will be presented to Parliament and implemented soon. |
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