Staff Reporter :
The High Court (HC) on Monday ordered hospitals and clinics to release bodies of poor and marginalized people even if they fail to pay the due bills.
The court also ruled that no hospital or clinic can keep the body of poor and destitute people confined if their family cannot pay the treatment bill of the hospital.
It ordered the Health Secretary and the Director General of the Department of Health Services to issue a
circular containing the directive for all the hospital and clinics in the country.
The court also directed them to create a fund for paying the treatment bill if any poor people die in the hospital or clinic and if they fail to pay the due.
The HC bench of Justice Syed Muhammad Dastagir Husain and Justice Md Ataur Rahman Khan passed the directives after hearing a writ petition moved by Advocate Manzill Murshid on behalf of Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh.
The organization filed the writ petition with the High Court on June 2012 following a report published in a Bengali daily on June 10, 2012 that said City Hospital in Dhaka did not hand over the body of a child to its parents as they could not pay the full bill of the treatment.
The court also directed the City Hospital authorities to give Tk 5,000 to Anzuman Mofidul Islam for burying the body of the child.
