New
Delhi:
The Supreme Court Tuesday sought the Centre's response on a plea seeking
directions for a uniform standard of healthcare for citizens in line with the
Constitution by adopting the provisions of the Clinical Establishments Act,
2010.
The
plea has also sought directions for operationalising all the provisions of the
Act, as well as Clinical Establishment Rules, 2012 in order to ensure
affordable and quality healthcare.
A
bench comprising Chief Justice NV Ramana and Surya Kant issued notice to the
government and others on the plea filed by Jan Swasthya Abhiyan, Patients'
Rights Campaign and K M Gopakumar.
Senior
advocate Sanjay Parikh, appearing for the petitioners, argued that the Clinical
Establishment Act (CEA) came after several committees' recommendations and
National Policy on Health and provided guidelines for determining charges and
standard treatment.
The
plea has sought directions for notification and implementation of the
conditions for registration of clinical establishments such as observance of
minimum standards, display of rates for procedures and services, compliance
with the standard treatment protocol, as provided in Sections 11 and 12 of the
CEA read with Rule 9 of the Rules, 2012.
The
plea has also sought directions that a grievance redressal mechanism be created
for the patients at the district, state and national level till the lacunae in
the CEA are filled by a suitable legislation.
The
PIL said the duty to provide healthcare to citizens was put on the government
under Article 47 of the Constitution; however, the public healthcare system did
not proceed as conceived and treats only 30 per cent of the patients, while the
rest are treated by the private sector.
The
petition contended that the public healthcare system suffers from a lack of
public health infrastructure and human resources, non-availability of
medicines, lack of public investment and forced dependency on the private
sector.
The
plea submitted that there is an urgent need to develop the public healthcare
system in India by providing proper infrastructure and sufficient budget to
ensure that the maximum facilities exist in the public domain, not only in
normal times but also at the time of emergencies such as COVID-19.
Since
it will take time and investment to develop the public health infrastructure,
there is an urgent need to regulate the private healthcare providers to ensure
access to affordable and quality healthcare to citizens, the plea said.
“If
the provisions of the Clinical Establishments Act 2010 are implemented, which
apply both to the public and private sector, it would be possible to control
some of the ailments from which the private medical the sector is suffering
from and also provides an enabling environment to enjoy the right to health
guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution and Article 12 of International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,” the plea said.
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