Laws and Health Care Providers

Although numerous government appointed and other committees have brought out their reports which have influenced frequent changes in health care delivery, there has been little long term concretisation of policies in the form of proper legislation. As a consequence, the services established by the government have only created entitlements without giving any right to people to take judicial action when the service is inadequately rendered or under some pretext, summarily withdrawn. This study reviews reports of most of the committees since independence. It shows that some of these committees, while lamenting on the government's lack of political will to properly implement good health policies, have themselves been lacking in providing plan for operationalising their own recommendations through suitable legislation(s), thereby giving adequate rights to people for demanding services. The study also does a global survey to understand existence of right to health or in its lieu, the legislated entitlements to create right to basic minimum services. The study also looks into three other legal frameworks on the delivery system, namely, laws for self-regulation of health care professionals, regulation of hospitals and the tort laws.
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