Editorial: Balancing care regulation
Why Sindh’s healthcare oversight struggles to align standards, authority and support? A recent report published in this newspaper has drawn attention to a troubling paradox at the heart of Sindh’s healthcare regulation i.e. despite having a legal mandate for over a decade, the Sindh Healthcare Commission (SHCC) remains unable to effectively regulate public-sector hospitals and clinics. What was envisaged as an independent watchdog for patient safety continues to struggle with delayed administrative backing, overlapping authority, and a lack of sustained political urgency. The law itself is unambiguous. Registration and licensing are mandatory for all healthcare establishments, whether public or private. Yet, as highlighted in the report, while many private facilities—often reluctantly—enter the regulatory net, a vast majority of government-run hospitals and clinics remain outside it. This imbalance not only weakens regulatory credibility but also violates the principle of equal acc...
