Staff Reporter :
The High Court on Monday observed that if any government or private hospital or clinic shows any medical negligence to any serious patient and if the patient then dies it would be considered as a criminal offence for ‘death due to negligence’.
Besides, the court directed the law enforcers to take appropriate legal actions against the responsible persons.
The High Court Bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim passed the observation and some other directions after holding hearing on five separate writ petitions filed in this regard.
The HC sought a report from the concerned bodies of the government whether all the government and private hospitals and clinics were following the health guidelines to give treatment equally to the Covid-19 and non-Covid patients.
And what steps have been taken against those hospitals and clinics that could not abide by the guidelines should be mentioned in the report.
The Health Secretary and Director General of Directorate General of Health Services have been asked to submit the report over the issue within June 30 this year.
The court also directed the concerned bodies to oversee if the private hospitals and clinics were giving treatment to the non-Covid patients according to the guidelines.
The private hospitals and clinics authorities have been asked to submit a progress report to the Health Ministry and Health Directorate over the issue after every 15 days and the two government bodies have been asked to submit those in the court.
The Health Ministry and Health Directorate have been asked to formulate a monitoring cell in all the divisional cities for the full-time monitoring if the private hospitals and clinics were giving full treatment to the non-Covid patients.
The court said that Incentive Care Unit beds management system in the government hospitals should be more accountable and comprehensive and also be centrally monitored by the Health Directorate.
The court also asked the directorate to publish the update information of the ICU beds used or non-used in the bulletin and in the social medias everyday so that the patients could easily know the information about the ICUs and they could easily communicate in the right place.
The Health Directorate has to monitor so that the private hospitals and clinics could not realize irrational fees from the patients admitted in the ICUs.
The HC asked the Commerce Ministry and the National Consumers Rights Protection Department to monitor the demand and supply and selling system of the oxygen cylinders in the markets. They have also been asked to fix up the MRP of oxygen cylinders and refueling of those. The retail sellers were asked to display the price card for the buyers.
The writ petitions were filed by Barrister Mahfuzur Rahman Milon, Advocate Manzill Murshid, Advocate Yadia Zaman, Barrister Aneeq R Haq, Advocate AM Jamiul Hoque, Advocate Md Nazmul Huda, advocate Md Mehdi Hassan and Barrister AKM Ehsanur Rahman recently.
