A petition has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking directions to the Centre to make arrangements to bring back 18 medical professionals, who are pregnant and stranded in Saudi Arabia in vulnerable conditions, amid COVID-19 Pandemic.
The petition has been filed by Sanisha Thomas and others, a total of 18 medical professionals, employed as Nurses and Doctors in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are in their third trimester of pregnancy and are living in vulnerable condition proving to be fatal to them as well as the fetuses.
The plea, moved through advocate Jose Abraham sought a direction to the Embassy of India, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to take appropriate measure to ensure that the Petitioners have access to proper medical facilities till they are repatriated to India.
The petitioners have further submitted that “most of the Government Hospitals in Saudi Arabia has been converted into Covid19 treatment centres and are admitting only those people with the said infection and the Petitioners are also not in a financial position to afford to go to private Hospitals for treatment.”
The petitioners have further stated that since most of them have resigned from their jobs to return to India for delivery of their child, they do not have any source of income to pay for their essential needs including expenses of delivery.
Invoking right to life and right to equality the petitioners have submitted that the State is under an obligation under Article-21 not only to protect the life of unborn child from arbitrary and unjust destruction, but also not to deny it equal protection under Article-14.
-India Legal Bureau