Over 1,000 violations recorded at healthcare facilities last year

Over a thousand violations were found at healthcare facilities during the past one year, according to the regulator. The National Health Regulatory Authority (NHRA) says violations ranging from medical waste disposal to improper sterilisation were found at different healthcare facilities as its teams carried out inspections from time to time last year. The authority said that 697 inspection visits were made last year out of which 384 were part of routine inspections.

“One hundred and eleven inspection visits were made to new healthcare facilities while 62 visits focused on auditing. The rest were follow-up visits, inspections based on complaints, adding services and changing facilities.” According to NHRA, majority of the violations were related to the facility structure (267), followed by devices failing the safety test and improper medical waste disposal. Others include engineering, fire safety, licensing and patient record violations. Meanwhile, 40 violations were committed by the pharmacies in the Kingdom last year, according to the authority.

The NHRA has classified violations committed by these pharmacies into five categories. The most common category was related to medicines sold (15), followed by price price cheating (8), pharmacy set up violations (5), licensing violations (6) and temperature/humidity/refrigerator violations (6). The authority said that 600 inspection visits were made to pharmacies last year.

The latest statistics says that there are currently around 263 licensed pharmacies, an increase of 50 when compared to 2017. Among them, 59 are hospital pharmacies while 204 are private pharmacies. At 95, the Capital Governorate has the maximum number of pharmacies. It is closely followed by Northern Governorate (61), Southern Governorate (57) and Muharraq Governorate (51).

Most of the newly-started pharmacies were in the Capital Governorate (28). Thirteen pharmacies were launched in the Southern Governorate last year, while the Northern and Muharraq Governorates saw the opening of four and eight pharmacies respectively last year.