Healthcare workers under microscope
The Government Health Service Commission (GHSC) has started exercising corrective control over public health workers committing indiscipline of varied dimensions that impinge on their professionalism and service delivery in general.
The commission has since started calling for submissions of feedback from the public on perceptions of service delivery and conduct of healthcare workers in public health facilities or communities.
This comes at a time when the Office of the Ombudsman 2023 annual report stated that 9 219 health services delivery related complaints have been registered through its hospital ombudsman platform.
GHSC commissioner David Nungu confirmed in an interview on Saturday the assessment of professional conduct and service delivery in public health facilities follow increasing media reports about disruptive conduct committed by health workers.
“Therefore , the commission is exercising this power given to it by the Act. Moreover, the assignment would further the broaden spirit of the public sector reforms framework,” he said.
The commissioner explained that GHSC would want to ascertain the allegations made against health workers and understand the chain of causation.
In a written response, Nungu said: “Importantly, this would guide the commission in exercising its power of enforcing professional discipline among health workers and, thereby, contribute to improvement of health care service delivery and achieve satisfaction of the service users.
“The commission would also use the findings to improve the interface between rights holders, in this case, the patients and other patrons of services provided by these public health facilities and, the duty bearers, being the said health facilities.”
He said the approach would be ongoing as such the public is encouraged to keep providing the requested feedback to the commission no later than end of this month.
Among others, the commission wishes to assess the way health care workers relate with and serve the people in various health facilities and communities across the country.
The assessment will be a two-tier process where GHSC would interact with healthcare workers and management of health facilities and district councils while the second tier involves consultations with the members of the public, including patients and survivors.
The commission will be receiving the required feedback in form of complaints or suggestions regarding service delivery and conduct of the health care workers.
The commission a l s o wants the feedback to specify whether the nearest facilities have professional disciplinary issues including staff punctuality, absenteeism, laxity, pilferages, theft, work culture, attitudes towards patients and other service users and also effective citizen-duty bearer interfacing structures or platforms such as health centre management committees to facilitate citizen participation in service delivery and community-based monitoring.
Established by an Act of Parliament No. 14 of 2002, the commission has powers to exercise disciplinary control over persons holding or acting in any office in the government health service.
Whi l e applauding the commission for the assessment, health rights advocate Maziko Matemba described the exercise as “long overdue.”
According to the Ombudsman 2023 annual report, the 9 219 figure surpasses all other types of complaints lodged with the office against other government ministries, departments and agencies.
Out of the 9 219 complaints, only 4 221 were resolved by the office representing a 46 percent complaint resolution rate.
