No Patient Should Be Sent Back Due To Costly Treatment: SC

The Supreme Court has made it clear that any patient should not be sent back from the hospital on the grounds that the treatment is costly. It also requested the Centre to issue guidelines on the expenditure to be incurred for the treatment of Covid-19 patients. It felt that during this crisis, the treatment should not cost more.

At the same time, the apex court also made it clear that it cannot decide which is the best treatment and that it also cannot control the expenditure on the treatment.

The three-judge bench, including Justice S.A. Bobde, Justice R.S. Reddy, Justice A.S. Bopanna, was replying to the petition filed by advocate Sachin Jain in which he pleaded for a mechanism to control the cost of Covid-19 treatment in private hospitals across the country. He took it to the notice of the court that some private hospitals were fleecing the patients during the crisis.

On the other hand, the Solicitor General, Tushar Mehta, who was arguing in favour of the central government said that the government was observing all the issues pertaining to Covid-19 and the other issues raised by the petitioner.