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In a significant judgment, Supreme Court of India has observed that a patient who is in dire need of the treatment, cannot be denied any treatment or any medicine merely because of his financial reasons. Therefore, members of the medical professions owe a constitutional duty to treat such people.
A bench of Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Uday Umesh Lalit set aside the Delhi High Court order that had quashed the circular issued by the Government of NCT of Delhi.
The bench directed all the hospitals built on subsidized land to scrupulously observe the conditions imposed by the government circular including that to provide free treatment to 10% indoor patients and 25% outdoor patients of poor strata of the society.
Justice Arun Mishra made some piquant observations about medical profession and ethics and stated that it is inhuman to deny proper treatment to the poor owing to economic condition.
The bench observed, ‘Due to financial reasons, if treatment is refused, it would be against the very basic tenets of the medical profession and the concept of charity in whatever form we envisage the same, besides being unconstitutional would be violative of basic human rights’.
While the land had been obtained for charitable purposes, it is within the right of the government to impose such obligation. It further observed that such free treatment does not amount to restriction under Article 19(6) on the right enshrined under Article 19(1)(g).
The bench directed the government direct to file a periodical report within a period of one year with respect to compliance of conditions by the hospitals and other similar hospitals in Delhi, as it observed resistance from the part of hospital management to wholesome policy violation of the conditions in the circular.
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