(MENAFN- Jordan Times) Under a new umbrella organisation scheduled to launch today, a group of the Kingdom's health and human rights civil society organisations (CSO) will coordinate efforts to defend patients' rights and lobby for better health policies.
With 30 member organisations, the Jordanian CSO Health Alliance will work to reform the policies that govern the Kingdom's health sector, according to its secretary general, Fadia Samara.
"Medical accountability is a major issue that we will work on," Samara told The Jordan Times over the phone on Saturday, adding that the alliance will gather data on medical errors in Jordan and consult with health providers to revisit the draft medical accountability law, which failed in April to win support from the Jordan Medical Association (JMA).
Instead of endorsing the draft law, which is intended to regulate medical procedures, keep track of medical errors and hold practitioners accountable for malpractice, the JMA suggested amending its own law to expedite the processing of complaints.
JMA President Ahmad Armouti said at the time that the association had several concerns about the draft law, such as that it does not clarify the party responsible for paying damages to patients found to have been the victims of medical error or to their families.
Some form of the legislation has been in discussion since 2007, but earlier efforts to pass it were also stalled by opposition from the JMA.
The rate of medical error in the Kingdom is 2.5 per cent, according to the first and only survey conducted on this subject in 2008.
The alliance will also focus on ensuring the availability of drugs at affordable prices, according to Samara.
Other objectives include campaigning against the overuse of medicine, empowering patients to defend their rights, and cooperating with the media to conduct awareness campaigns.
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