Paraguayan Deputy Arturo Urbieta introduced a bill seeking to create a specific legal framework to strengthen patient protection and reduce risks during care in hospitals, clinics, and other health services, both public and private.
The legislator argued that access to health should not be limited to the existence of hospitals or care centers, but must also guarantee adequate conditions, safe care, and minimum quality standards. The bill maintains that the constitutional right to health is violated when people suffer preventable harm within the health system itself, a situation that, according to the initiative, continues to generate serious human and economic consequences.
Among the problems highlighted are hospital infections, medication administration errors, patient identification mix-ups, and surgical failures, episodes that, according to the proposal, still occur at different levels of the health system. The initiative also questions that current health legislation has become outdated in the face of new challenges related to medical risk control and hospital safety, proposing to update oversight and prevention mechanisms.
Another central point is the intention to reduce inequalities between medical care offered in Asunción and in the interior of the country, as well as quality differences between public and private facilities. The bill clarifies that it does not intend to persecute doctors or health personnel, but rather to promote reporting and evaluation systems that allow errors to be detected without automatic punitive mechanisms, with the aim of correcting failures and preventing their recurrence.
The initiative proposes abandoning the so-called “culture of concealment” within the health system to move toward models based on transparency, monitoring, and continuous improvement of services. Among the measures foreseen are mandatory accreditation of health centers, stricter controls on infrastructure and specialized personnel, strengthening of informed consent, and greater patient access to clear information about treatments and procedures. It also includes epidemiological surveillance and pharmacovigilance mechanisms to reinforce monitoring of infections and adverse events related to medications and medical practices.
The bill will now be studied in committees of the Chamber of Deputies, amid debate over the structural deficiencies of the health system and the growing demands of the population for safer and more efficient medical services.