Chorus grows for adopting patients’ rights​ charter

NEW DELHI:  More than six months after the first-ever patients’ rights charter, prepared by the National Human Rights Commission, was made public by the Union Health Ministry for feedback from various quarters, the government is yet to adopt it. The inordinate delay forced families of patients, who have suffered due to mistreatment and overcharging by private hospitals and various patient rights groups, to hit the streets in Delhi and demand immediate implementation of the charter. 

The draft charter, that was put on the ministry’s website last year, proposed that no doctor or hospital can force a patient or attendant to buy drugs from specified pharmacies and every hospital will need to have a grievance redressal system. The proposed policy also acknowledges rights of individuals involved in clinical trials and their protection from biomedical and health researches and says that the charter will be implemented through states. 

“There is an expectation that this document will act as a guidance document for the Union and state governments to formulate concrete mechanisms but its unfathomable why the government has been sitting over it,” N Sarojini of Sama group for women, who took part in the protest, said. Several other relatives of patients said that acceptance of the charter is crucial as India does not have a dedicated regulator and few states have adopted the national Clinical Establishments Act 2010.

The NHRC in the draft had recommended that clinical establishments should set up an internal grievance redressal mechanism, which should respond to a complainant within 24 hours. Officials in the Health Ministry said the charter was still under “deliberation” and the suggestions received were being “assessed.”