A Lawyer has written a letter to the Prime Minister Narender Modi in reference with the Supreme court directions on testing price of COVID-19 in India.
Lawyer Shashank Deo Sudhi has brought to the notice of the PM that the amended order dated 13 April 2020 of the Hon’ble Supreme Court has not come into force, so that the poor people who are above poverty line can be protected by getting the testing free in the private laboratories and thus requested PM Modi that immediate proactive steps may be taken to ensure the prompt implementation of direction of the Supreme Court in the interest of public at large and in the interest of containing the spread deadly corona virus (COVID-19).
The relevant paras of the Supreme court amended order on 13th April, 2020, are given below:-
“(i)Free testing for COVID-19 shall be available to persons eligible under Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana as already implemented by the Government of India, and any other category of economically weaker sections of the society as notified by the Government for free testing for COVID-19, hereinafter.”
(ii)The Government of India, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare may consider as to whether any other categories of the weaker sections of the society e.g. workers belonging to low income groups in the informal sectors, beneficiaries of Direct Benefit Transfer, etc. apart from those covered under Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana are also eligible for the benefit of free testing and issue appropriate guidelines in the above regard also within a period of one week.
(iii) The private Labs can continue to charge the payment for testing of COVID-19 from persons who are able to make payment of testing fee as fixed by ICMR.
(iv) The Government of India, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare may issue necessary guidelines for reimbursement of cost of free testing of COVID-19 undertaken by private Labs and necessary mechanism to defray expenses and reimbursement to the private Labs.”
The letter addressed to PM Modi said that the people of India are facing extremely difficult situation and are unable to protect their lives from the deadly disease of corona virus (Covid-19). In such critical situation, Supreme Court stepped in for the protection of the lives of the common people of the country by passing an order dated 08th April, 2020 which further modified on 13th April, 2020 in which the lives of the common citizen can be protected by availability and accessibility of the testing facilities in government and private laboratories free of cost across the country.
Lawyer has written that the state cannot be indulged in commercial bargaining with the private laboratories for containing the deadly corona virus (covid-19) and that unreasonable and unjustified classification by financial capping in testing cost as Rs 4500/- in efforts to contain the deadly spread of corona virus (covid-19) is completely erroneous an oppose to the constitutional ideals and the concerted objective of the government is to contain the deadly virus covid-19 from spreading irrespective of poor or rich being tested in government or private laboratories.
“It is matter of fact that the private health sector has a monopoly over testing and other health care requirements and it is matter of grave concern that 70% of the total laboratories of country are from private sector. Hence, it is a day dream to contain the covid-19 by confining the free testing accessibility and treatment only to the The classification of government laboratories, private laboratories, rich and poor and religious denominations would disrupt the fight against the Covid-19. It is further submitted that in the majority of the states of our country are having immense task of dealing with asymptomatic corona virus infected patients and the financially incapable citizen are not approaching the government hospital from fear of being harassed in terms of long queue and other systemic harassment including the fear of quarantining for 14 days if tested positive government hospital excluding the testing accessibility to the private hospitals and laboratories”, said in the letter.
He also highlighted that the state like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana and Punjab etc are having poor testing records and the entire testing being conducted in these states are 107979, 48015, 35519, 56000, 16000, 2885, 13270 respectively and the total number of covid-19 infected patients are 26518 as on26.04.2020. It is also a matter of record that more than 800 people has fallen victim of deadly disease of covid-19.
Therefore, the lawyer has written that the amended order of the Hon’ble Supreme Court has not come into force, so that the poor people who are above poverty line can be protected by getting the testing free in the private laboratories and thus requested PM Modi that immediate proactive steps may be taken to ensure the prompt implementation of direction of the Supreme Court in the interest of public at large and in the interest of containing the spread deadly corona virus (covid-19).
-India Legal Bureau