Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, May 3: With abysmal health care scenario in Jammu and Kashmir, Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) today called for ‘Medical Audit’ to assess the performance of doctors and hospitals.
Pitching for Medical Audit, the DAK president, Dr Nisar-ul-Hassan said it is an instrument to enhance professional performance and thereby improve the quality of health care and ensure safety of patients.
“There is ample evidence demonstrating that there is a gap between the health care that patients receive and the practice that is recommended. The existing practice of medicine is furthest away from what is desired,” he said.
In both primary and tertiary care there are unwarranted variations in practice-and in the resulting outcomes-that cannot be explained on the basis of characteristics of patients, the DAK president said, adding that there are many examples of how health care has exposed patients to avoidable risks or even harmful interventions.
He said the key component of audit is that performance is reviewed to ensure what should be done is being done. “It ensures that there are clear lines of accountability for continuously improving the quality of services. There are number of hospitals in peripheral health care system where nothing is being done and they are a waste of public money,” Dr Nisar said.
He said there are some doctors who have been avoiding work and are drawing salaries without doing their jobs. “The prescriptions are full of irrational and inessential drugs and patients are subjected to unnecessary investigations, procedures and surgeries,” said the DAK president, adding here are no infection control measures and no standard treatment protocols in hospitals thus jeopardizing the lives of patients.
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