The Health Facilities Regulatory Agency (HeFRA) has warned health facilities to comply with safety protocols and regulatory requirements or face sanctions as it steps up monitoring and enforcement.
The agency’s Registrar, Dr Winfred Korletey Baah, said patient safety remained central to its mandate and that it would continue to ensure facilities provided safe and quality healthcare.
Speaking at a capacity-building workshop for health facility managers and owners in the Ashanti Region, Dr Baah said some facilities were operating without adequate knowledge of the regulatory requirements governing their services, contributing to substandard healthcare delivery.
The workshop, held under the theme “Strengthening Healthcare Systems Through Compliance, Quality and Patient Safety,” was intended to familiarise managers with the standards and requirements they must meet ahead of intensified inspections.
Dr Baah said the training would not lead to any relaxation of the agency’s enforcement standards, adding that facilities would be held accountable for breaches.
“Our aim is to protect the patient and ensure that when patients visit a health facility, they are safe and receive safe, quality care,” he said.
He said HeFRA could impose different levels of sanctions depending on the nature and severity of violations.
“When we conduct inspections and find that a facility is not complying with the requirements, there are various levels of sanctions we can impose. We can reprimand the facility, withhold its licence, impose a fine, close it down or take it to court. Some of these sanctions may be applied in combination, depending on the severity of the offence committed,” he said.
The Ashanti Regional Head of HeFRA, David Faarku, identified poor sanitation as one of the major challenges facing health facilities in the region.
He said the agency would sustain its monitoring activities until significant improvements were recorded in sanitation and hygiene standards across facilities.
