Court Orders Maharashtra To Act Against Hospitals Turning Away Covid Suspects

COVID-19: Bombay High Court said both Maharashtra government and the Centre has issued guidelines to prevent such inconvenience to citizens.

The Bombay High Court has directed the Maharashtra government to take strict action against hospitals and medical centres that deny admission to deserving patients merely over lack of a positive RT-PCR COVID-19 test report. In an order passed on Wednesday, a bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice G S Kulkarni said the state authorities must act against hospitals and medical centres that violated guidelines issued by the state and Centre last month on admitting suspected COVID-19 patients. The bench was referring to circulars issued by the state government and the Union government on May 17 and May 8, respectively. The circulars direct hospitals or medical centres to not deny admission or medical aid to any patient on any count. The High Court was hearing a petition filed by lawyer Wilson K Jaiswal, seeking directions to ensure that all hospitals, health centres, COVID-19 centres, etc., across the state, admit suspected COVID-19 patients, without insisting on an RT-PCR test report.