The Supreme Court has directed the States across the country to formulate guidelines and policies, ensuring that patients and their families were not exploited by hospitals, especially private hospitals.
The Bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice N Kotishwar Singh observed that since it would not be advisable for the Supreme Court to issue mandatory directions in this regard, keeping in view the growth of private hospitals, it expected the states to take a policy call on the matter.
The guidelines should be formulated in a way that on one hand, they prevent the exploitation of patients in private hospitals, while on the other hand, the schemes should not put any unreasonable restriction or discourage private entities from entering the health sector.
The Bench passed the order on a Public Interest Litigation seeking directions to restrain hospitals from compelling patients to buy medicines and medical supplies exclusively from in-house pharmacies at allegedly exorbitant rates.
The petitioners claimed that private hospitals and nursing homes were systematically overcharging patients by making it mandatory to buy medicines and medical supplies from their affiliated pharmacies.
One of the petitioners mentioned that a family member underwent treatment for cancer and had to pay exorbitant charges for medicines.
The petitioners contended that such practices amounted to economic exploitation and violated the right to health under Article 21 of the Constitution.
Noting that the lack of regulatory mechanisms had enabled private hospitals to impose unreasonable charges, the petitioners sought judicial intervention to prevent such coercive practices.
The top court of the country said although providing medical facilities to all was a fundamental aspect of the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution, given the country’s vast population, the States struggled to build sufficient medical infrastructure.
To address this problem, the government encouraged private entities to establish hospitals, resulting in the growth of renowned private healthcare institutions in India, rivalling top hospitals worldwide. Not only the people, even the States looked towards these private entities to provide basic and specialised medical facilities to the public at large, it added.
The Bench noted that it could not issue any direction that may hamper the growth of private healthcare institutions. Therefore, it expected the States to take a policy call on such issues.