The Supreme Court on Friday expressed shock when doctors and health workers complained that the days they spend in quarantine after performing COVID-19 duty was being marked as holiday by authorities.
“They are being compulsorily quarantined after duty... And you are taking advantage and taking away their leave?” Justice M.R. Shah, one of the judges on the Bench led by Justice Ashok Bhushan, exclaimed.
The court directed the Centre, represented by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, to enquire into the issue.
The court was also informed that five States — Tripura, Maharashtra, Punjab, Gujarat and Karnataka — have not paid full salaries to doctors and health workers. The Supreme Court had on June 17 order directed States to pay the full salaries within the next 24 hours.
The court asked the Centre to ensure, even by using its sweeping powers under the Disaster Management Act, that doctors and health workers get their full salaries within a week.
On June 17, the court, acting on a petition filed by Dr. Arushi Jain, had also ordered States to provide appropriate accommodation and implement quarantine guidelines uniformly among medical staffers and doctors, regardless of the nature of their exposure to COVID-19 patients.
The court had taken exception to how quarantine was done away with for medical workers except those in high-risk category.
It had said no distinction could be made between health care workers in high risk areas and others as far as quarantine was concerned.
Senior advocate K.V. Vishwanathan, for petitioner Dr. Arushi Jain, said in most cases medical staffers had their aged parents staying with them.
The court had objected to the lack of infrastructure and salary cuts saddled on medical staffers. It had earlier warned the government that “you do not want dissatisfied soldiers in the war” against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr. Jain has questioned the Centre’s new Standard Operating Procedure of May 15 for frontline COVID-19 Health Care Workers (HCWs) by which it has ended the 14-day mandatory quarantine for them.