Shri Uday Kumar Manna, Founder and National Convener Ram Janaki Sansthan Positive Broadcasting House(RJS PBH) organised today 09.06.2024 another international webinar in association with Consumer Online Foundation to support efforts to increase, among stakeholders and the public, awareness of the importance of accreditation system in the country in raising awareness about the quality of goods and services in medical and other fields. It may be recalled that after it was conceptualised in 2007, the Accreditation Day began to be celebrated annuallly from 2008.
Shri Prafull D. Seth co-organised the Webinar. Those who graced the Webinar are : Shri Bejon Kumar Mishra (in the Chair), Founder and Editor, Aware Consumer magazine; Dr. Pankaj Johri, CEO, NABL ; Dr. Jitender Sharma, founder CEO, AMTZ, Chief guest; Ms Bina Jain, former President, AIWC, and Chairperson Ujjwal Women’s Association. Light was thrown on what has been achieved and what remains to be achieved by way of achieving international standards in diagnostics and medical attention topatients, and various other fields. While it was informed in the webinar discussions that although India now ‘ranks among the top 5 countries’ in accreditation system, there are still only about a few thousand labs of various drscriptions, out of which about 2 thousand diagnostic labs are covered by accreditation system ie a poor percentage of a total of probably about one lac diagnostic labs in the country, a data which is far from certain : This is because accreditation of labs is not mandatory but voluntary. Further standards have been revised in 2022 for conformity. It was informed that 70% errors have been found to occur in pre-diagnostic stage, ie, in the collection of samples from patient’s bedside to its transportation to labs. However, accreditation is a fast growing sector, and especially after Covid 2019, medical concern for preventing stage of health- care has increased. Further, the population of the aged will roughly double by 2040s greatly increasing requirement of standard diagnostics. Shri Prafull D.Seth, Founder, PSAIIF who co-organised the webinar, drew attention to the startling number of fake diagnostic reports with consequences of wrong prescriptions and treatment affecting the well-being of the patients. In the context of lack of apt regulations, he briefed the participants about earlier efforts to address the issue by filing PIL in Court. Has anything happened! It is clear that despite being considered one of the top in the world, the ground reality would appear to point to an uphill task on rough terrain for accreditation system needing conscientious coordination among all stakeholders on priority.
Dr. Jitender Sharma, Chief Guest who began by pointing out that in Australia every meeting is begun by paying homage to the elderly of the past, present (and future) and appreciated that RJS PBH pays homage in its webinars, as it did to Birsa Munda,Mah Rana Pratap and Baba Banda Singh Bahadur in today’s webinar which had elderly participants too. He underscored the fact that in the context of all sorts of technological developments, understanding quality is no longer a simple thing as in the past, but very complex. He gave various examples to prove his point. He also emphasised that those who ensure quality should be given incentive in the form of, say, tax concessions. He questioned the sufficiency of just five extant Boards under Quality Council of India in view of enormous challenges. He wanted that people should know simple definition of quality which is two-faceted: (a) safety and (b) efficacy. He thinks that every State should have an Institute for Quality: One such institute is going to be inaugirated on 15th Aug in Andhra Pradesh and RJSians have been invited by him to the said event. He gave numerous examples of what constitues quality from the angles of safety and effect ranging from safety of boarding buses; most of helmets having been found to lack safety standard as seen in trauma centre of AIIMS; how much time is effectively taken by hospitals to discharge the patient after operation, and with what cost, etc. He dwelt on the good work in AMTZ, where cost of MRI was almost halved, and where oxygen concentrators manufactured were innovatively repurposed to be solar-powered for a children hospital in Mogadishu which did not have electricity to operate them.
Both Dr. Sharma and Shri Johri answered questions from various participants. Dr. Bina Jain propsed vote of thanks, and Shri Uday Manna informed of the coming Sunday 26th June webinar on international Yoga Day.
It was clear from the deliberations of the webinar that while there have been achievements in the accreditation system, the ground yet to be covered is quote an enormous challenge for all, and there is *no room for complacency at all*
