AHO establishes regulator Africa Care Quality and Accountability Commission ACQAC to register and monitor health care in Africa and avoid Renee Bach fiasco
Africa Health Organisation (AHO) has established a regulator called Africa Care Quality and Accountability Commission (ACQAC) to register and monitor health care in Africa. This will help avoid the Renee Bach scenario in which Renee, an unqualified US missionary is allegedly practiced medicine at her Serving His Children NGO clinic in Uganda where over 100 children are said to have died.
Renee Bach was still a teenager when she left her small hometown in rural Virginia in USA and moved halfway across the world to Uganda, after spending just 10 months there on a mission trip.
She set up a Christian nonprofit, Serving His Children, in southeast Uganda in 2009, first providing free meals to families in need, then offering free inpatient and outpatient treatment for malnourished children as well as community engagement programs aimed at breaking the cycle of malnutrition. The organisation’s website is peppered with Bible verses, appeals for donations and images of Ugandan children, many with the telltale signs of severe malnutrition: sunken eyes, protruding ribs and bloated bellies.
A lawsuit filled with sweeping accusations that was filed in Uganda earlier this year, claimed that Bach, who has no formal medical training, diagnosed and treated children while running an unlicensed medical facility there, leading to the deaths of “hundreds of children.”
Among the allegations against Bach are performing medical procedures such as blood transfusions and inserting intravenous catheters, disregarding sanitary protocols and attempting to diagnose patients who showed symptoms frequently related to serious illnesses like HIV and AIDS.
One former volunteer stated in her affidavit that Bach allegedly “frequently wore a stethoscope around her neck” and “was aware” she was known in the community as the “white doctor.” The person claimed that Bach based her treatment on her “gut feelings,” relied heavily on the book “Where There Is No Doctor” and “did not follow orders of any local medical professional.”
What is Africa Care Quality and Accountability Commission (ACQAC)
Africa Care Quality and Accountability Commission (ACQAC) is the independent regulator of health and social care in Africa.
ACQAC makes sure health and social care services provide people with safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care and it encourages care services to improve.
ACQAC monitors, inspects and regulates services to make sure they meet fundamental standards of quality and safety and it publishes what it finds, including performance ratings to help people choose care.
ACQAC works in the following ways:
- Making sure services meet fundamental standards that people have a right to expect whenever they receive care.
- Registering care services that meet set standards. The registration includes UN agencies, International NGOs, National NGOs and local organisations
- Monitoring, inspecting and regulating care services to make sure that they continue to meet the standards.
- Protecting the rights of vulnerable people, including those whose rights are restricted.
- Listening to and acting on patient experiences.
- Involving the public and people who receive care in work and working in partnership with other organisations and local groups.
- Challenging all providers, with the worst performers getting the most attention.
- Making fair and authoritative judgements, supported by the best information and evidence.
- Taking appropriate action if care services are failing to meet fundamental standards of quality and safety.
- Carrying out in-depth investigations to look at care across the system.
- Reporting on the quality of care services, publishing clear and comprehensive information, including performance ratings to help people choose care.
