Govt hospitals must admit prisoners who need immediate treatment: HC

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court has directed all government hospitals across the state to admit prisoners who require immediate medical attention or surgery, without insisting on payment of treatment fees.

A division bench of justice Revati Mohite Dere and justice Dr Neela Gokhale passed the order on Wednesday, on a petition filed by Arun Bhelke, arrested by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) for allegedly being a Naxalite.

The 45-year-old resident of Chandrapur district had approached the high court in 2022, seeking compensation of ₹50 lakh, claiming his wife Kanchan Nanaware, who too was arrested by the ATS, died as an undertrial prisoner due to gross negligence by the jail authorities in providing her proper medical treatment.

In his petition, filed through Susan Abraham, Bhelke said that despite a specific recommendation by the Sassoon General Hospital in Pune, his wife was not referred to a super-specialty hospital, and when her condition deteriorated, the jail authorities allowed a very high-risk brain surgery to be performed on her “without following protocols prescribed under the law and without informing him and/or seeking his consent for the surgery”.

The couple was arrested by the ATS in Pune on September 1, 2014, on grounds that they were Naxalites. Bhelke had then brought it to the attention of the authorities that Nanaware had undergone open-heart surgery twice and required continuous medical attention, but jail officials did not pay attention to her medical requirements; neither did they bring her precarious condition to the notice of the courts, whenever her bail applications, on medical grounds, came up for hearing.

Bhelke’s petition stated that after Nanaware died on January 24, 2021, their advocates had obtained part of her medical records, which showed that Kanchan Nanaware would have lived if not for the way her medical treatment had been mishandled by the jail authorities.

It added that although doctors at the Sassoon Hospital had in February 2020, recommended that Nanaware be shifted to a super-specialty hospital, no action was taken. She was taken to a super-specialty hospital several months later, in December, after the high court issued directives to the jail officials.

“A CT scan revealed that she had chronic sub-dural hematoma, which is essentially a collection of blood on the brain’s surface under the outer covering of the brain (dura),” said the petition. “Even at that stage, her life could have been saved if she had been admitted to a super-specialty hospital, but she was instead sent back to jail with the advice that she be immediately referred to a neurosurgeon. Even this medical advice was not complied with, and her condition steadily deteriorated when she complained of constant headaches, vertigo and ataxia,” the petition added.

Against this backdrop, Bhelke has sought an independent investigation to identify the persons responsible for negligence in treating his wife and for appropriate civil and criminal action against them.

He has also sought orders to the state to reveal their policy regarding entitlements of prisoners to basic living conditions such as minimum living area, including extent and nature of outside activities, diet, particularly for the sick, as well as medical care, both in-house and in emergency situations.

The court has posted the petition for further hearing to June 18.