The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) government informed the Supreme Court on Tuesday that it has enacted an Act in order to regulate the health services with strong deliveries in the province. On April 26, while resuming the hearing of a suo motu case over deaths of more than 90 heart patients in Punjab Institute of Cardiology on account of spurious drugs, the top court had sought a detailed report from all the provinces pertaining to measures taken for better health facilities in the public sector hospitals.
Submitting the report in pursuance of the court directives, Additional Advocate General KPK Waqar Ahmed Khan also said that a Commission will ensure the safety of patients, health staff and to improve the quality of public and private health care services in the province.
The report said that KPK Health Care Commission Act, 2015 has been enacted on January 27, 2015 and in accordance with the Act, there will be a Commission and in terms of Section 6, the Commission will perform such function and exercise such powers as may be required to ensure safety of patients and health staff and to improve quality of public and private health care services
The provincial government further submitted that the Commission will set standard or requirements for registration and licensing of health care establishment that ensure patient and health staff and to enforce minimum standards of patient and health care staff safety in public and private sectors. Similarly, the Commission will also impose and collect fines in violation, breach on non-compliance of the provisions of rules, regulations and standards. Besides, the report disclosed that a state of the art Cardiology Department is fully functional in Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) adding that other hospitals including KTH, HMC and ATH also have Cardiac Care Units. In addition a 300 beds state of the art Peshawar Institute of Cardiology is being established at Hayatabad at a cost of Rs 263.340 million adding that the building of the Institute will be completed by June 30, 2016. The court has been informed that the PC-1 for purchase of equipment and the creation of posts will be processed once the building is completed adding that the tentative cost of the equipment is Rs 2500.00 million.