Recently a man arrested on charges of suspected murder was released by the court to make the Minister of Health and Family Dr Aminath Jameel accountable. I seriously question the wisdom behind that decision. If the reasoning is to be accepted, then all suspected criminals should be released to make the Maldives Police Services accountable. The decision raises several problems regarding the role of the courts in administering justice, which are better set aside for the purpose of this article. But the decision is an opportunity to draw up legislation to legally enforce the concerned authorities to work in liaison, by formulating procedures and guidelines so that justice is not denied to those who seek it simply because of administrative failures.
The fact that it had taken more than six months to get a death report cannot be accepted. There is no autopsy done, or any forensic investigations carried out, and a report is mostly drawn up by just looking at the dead body. It is just a visual account of the state of the dead body, with a statement by the declaring doctor(s) as to the cause of death. The fact that most doctors do not even follow the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Health and Family in filling up these forms is just another example of how limited the amount of power the Ministry can exercise over its employees.
Sadly, the recent event is not an isolated event. Over the months that I had worked in the Ministry of Health and Family, important documents that needed to be obtained and reports that need to be generated for the purpose of investigating claims of harm being done to patients took several months for completion. Or had to be simply abandoned because of multiple delays. Apart from the difficulties in obtaining key documents such as the hospital records, there was the reluctance and refusal of doctors to review the documents for a report on a case. The ADK Hospital repeatedly and blatantly refuses to hand over documents, stating that there are no legal grounds upon which they should be released. For ADK, the lack of a legislation enables them to not to cooperate with the Ministry in investigations, where it may be in their interest not to proceed with an investigation.
When patients make a complaint regarding serious harm or even death of a loved one, the least we could do is to explain to them what went wrong and ensure that something is done to prevent such an occurrence in the future, specially when such complaints are not made to claim compensation. This is important to regain the public’s trust in the healthcare system that has long been lost. But in majority of instances, a proper answer to their concerns cannot be provided due to the lack of cooperation by the health care institutions. The patients or their relatives cannot be asked to accept such frivolous delays.
Several meetings were held with the Maldives Police Services, the Prosecutor General, and even the Human Rights Commission to find a way to speed up the process of investigation. But up till now no framework has been setup.
It is high time the Ministry of Health and Family realize that they should be able to exercise power over the Health Service Cooperation and its employees. When the Ministry demands documents they should be provided and employees, whether doctors or not, should work together in collaboration with the Ministry in order to achieve its goals. As the regulator of healthcare services, it should have full control over all matters involving healthcare, both in the public and private settings.
I hope that the court decision would be used by the Minister of Health and Family as an opportunity to set in place the necessary legislation or to strengthen the existing legislation.
