Muscat: The Ministry of Health has ordered the terminal closure of three private health establishments and the temporary suspension of 18 others due to their failure to meet quality standards.
The Ministry also withdrew clinical privileges from some medical staff, suspended two specialised health institutions and issued warnings to 66 private health establishments.
The ministry also reprimanded 34 private health establishments for publishing advertisements via social media without getting permission to do so.
Dr. Muhanna Nasser Al Muselhi, Director General of Private Health Establishments at the Ministry of Health, said that the ministry is going ahead with regulatory procedures, including precautionary closure of any establishment that does not comply with the standard quality of health.
As many as 1,600 private health establishments (hospitals, clinics, polyclinics, paramedical centres) operate in the Sultanate of Oman and use the services of 10,684 employees, said Al Muselhi.
He added that the Directorate General of Private Health Establishments works hard to empower the private health sector through proper governance, quality control and assurance of patient safety.
He said that “to encourage investments, the Directorate General of Private Health Establishments along with other government sectors is working on simplifying the procedures of obtaining licences for health institutions and the health and medical cadre through initiation of e.government within the portal of national licences for various sectors.
He also valued the efforts of the personnel concerned at such health institutions, including their health cadres and appreciated their sincerity and tremendous efforts for offering high quality health services in accordance with the rules of the law on the practice of medicine and allied professions and related legislations and policies.
On the decisions related to suspension and closure and warnings served on some private health establishments, he said the Directorate General of Private Health Establishments supervises all private health establishments.
For this purpose, the Directorate General of Private Health Establishments organises periodical field visits by the evaluation teams (central teams and the teams in the various governorates of the Sultanate) to the various private health establishments in the Sultanate.
He said the statistics for the current year submitted by the Quality and Patients Safety Department at the Directorate General of Private Health Establishments showed administrative violations related to controls and terms of the licences for 75 private health establishments out of 150 private health establishments visited.
He also pointed out that the said violations included breach of the licensing systems of the health establishments and the clinical privileges licensed for medical personnel and breach of the policy for combating epidemics.
He also stated that the private health establishments have been given time to correct these violations within the period of time to be set by the department concerned depending on the severity of the violation, otherwise, such violating establishments would be referred to the administrative and technical violations committees as the related party (management of the violating establishment and health cadre) would be called by the Directorate General of Private Health Establishments.
He said the penalties imposed by the Ministry of Health are based on the decisions of the committee tasked with settlement of the technical and administrative violations formed by Administrative Decision No. 74/2016.
He also urged all private health establishments to comply with the systems, legislations and policies regulating the private health sector and related to offering quality health services and which guarantee safety of patients and preserve the health of the members of the society.
