FCCPC Berates Institutions For Failure To Pay Attention To Clients

The Executive Vice Chairman, Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), Mr. Babatunde Irukare, has lamented the failure and or omission of most institutions in the country in paying appropriate attention to the rights of their clients in the process of rendering services.

Irukare, who stated the position of FCCPC during the domestication of the Patients’ Bills of Rights (PBoR) by the management of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital (ATBUTH), Bauchi, said there was the need to reset the button and reanalysed the process to ensure that the rights are highlighted.

He also said; “There are two sides of the divides. The providers and all their stakeholders within the providing community, all their collaborators and auxiliary operatives and also to the patients themselves”.

Irukare noted that PBoR was not new as the rights inherent in the document had always existed, adding that the most critical component of any rights enforcement is the patient who knows his or rights and is willing to demand those rights by insisting on those rights.

“The second most important component is the provider and every operative of the providers who also knows those rights. Every provider is therefore expected to recognize the obligations through those patients and set up an apparatus to respect and comply with those rights. If these two exist, about 80 percent of patients’ rights for the most part are already going to be complied with,” he said.

The FCCPC chief Executive also said; “I must start by thanking the Chief Medical Director, Professor Yusuf Jibrin and the leadership of the hospital for embracing the whole concept of domesticating the patients’ bill of right. We look forward to partnering with ATBUTH in advancing this very important aspect of your work”.

Earlier, the CMD of ATBUTH, Professor Yusuf Jibrin Bara, said that the domestication of the Patients Bills of Rights by the hospital was important to its services to members of the public.

He said; “The patient is important because without the patients we cannot be here, including the students who are here to learn”.

Bara also said that the patients are supposed to be treated as ‘kings’, adding that the management under his leadership was emphasizing that philosophy.