Union Health
Ministry not to ‘pursue’ legislation, says RTI reply
The Union
Health and Family Welfare Ministry has withdrawn the draft legislation on
protection of healthcare workers and healthcare institutions from violence,
which proposed a jail term of up to five years and a fine of up to ₹5 lakh for
the offenders.
Noticeably, around 278 cases had been registered under the provisions of the Kerala Health Care Service Persons and Health Care Service Institutions (Prevention of Violence and Damage to Property) Act, 2012 of which 232 of such cases had been charge-sheeted and 28 were under investigation.
In AP, we didn't have reliable statistics.
Majority of the doctors don't file the cases and didn't showing interest
in pressing police officers to file the charge sheets. Instead Doctors and hooligans opting for settlements in spite of IMA's
repeated advise.
“The attacks on Health Care Workers or an attempt to
intimidate or threaten them, for whatever be the reason can never be condoned
or tolerated.”-comments by kerala high court. not only this, so many high
courts and supreme court also expressed same feelings.
By the direction of the court, the kerala
State government had proposed following suggestions:
“1. CCTV should be installed in all hospitals,
initially and a feed shall be given to Police AID Post.
2.At the institution level, security in charge officer
to be nominated by the Superintendent of Hospital.
3.The paramedical staff and others to be given security
related training by coordinating with the Superintendent of the Hospital.
4.All further appointments of security personnel,
especially for Casualty and Out Patient Department (OPD) areas shall only be
from Ex-Serviceman Society/organizations.”
Though majority of states (20) made violence against
doctors" as Cognizable and non bailable,Very few complaints are being
filled under this act as compared the number of violence incidents, which shows
that, even if there is existing laws doctors are not making use of it.
India has one of the strictest anti rape laws, still
the number of rape cases are increasing over the years
Thus, having a central law, will just create a false
sense of security in the mind of the doctors.
The center has already enacted certain laws like
Indian Penal Code, 1860 and Code of Criminal procedures, 1974. We do not
need new laws. Whenever a mob (most common form of assault on doctors in India)
attacks a doctor, the mob is committing a lot of cognizable crimes. eg-
Assaulting a public servant (doctor in government service), Causing grievous
hurt, Criminal trespass and unlawful assembly with arms. Whenever the police
receive any information about cognizable crime being committed, they are duty
bound to file FIR, they can launch the investigation and can arrest without a
warrant (Lalita Kumari Versus Govt. of U.P. & Ors.) Therefore, we don’t
need new laws but just a better usage of already enacted laws.
what should be done by the Govt?
The Ministry of Health had come up with a draft
central legislation termed “The Healthcare Service Personnel and Clinical
Establishments (Prohibition of Violence and Damage to Property) Bill, 2019”
last year (2019) after the west bengal incidences. This act had a similar
wording to all the state acts. However, It lacked any IPC provisions under
which the police can register a complaint. This leads to ambiguity in
interpretation by police.
I therefore am of the very strong opinion that we do
not need a new central law but we just need to advocate to the government to
amend the IPC and CrPC (entry 1 and 2 in the concurrent list) and insert
additional sections which criminalizes a person attacking a doctor. This will
objectively help the police in filing FIRs, doing investigations, which would
lead to faster delivery of justice and finally lead to deterrence of such
crimes.
There is no need for one law to have provisions of
another law. FIR can be filed under the concerned / proposed law itself.
However, section 5 of the proposed bill titled "Offences and
penalties" prescribes the penalties and also refers to the IPC.
It is not the stringent Law or severity of
punishment which is going to deter the criminals but only certainty of
punishment. As long as they believe that the chance of not being caught is more
than being caught, they will continue their criminal activities.
“Attacks on Doctors cannot be condoned”; ( వైద్యులపై దాడులను మన్నించకూడదు. ఉపేక్షించరాదు- కేరళ హైకోర్టు ) Kerala
HC directs State to give publicity to penal consequences of such attacks and
increase awareness.
Hence, the State Police Chief was directed to ensure
that necessary instructions are given to all the Station House Officers to
react swiftly and quickly in case of any complaint being made to them by the
hospitals and make adequate arrangements for disseminating information about
penal consequences of violence against medical practitioners.
Government to ensure that the provisions of the Anti
violence Act are made known to the public at large, including by giving
publicity in the premises of the hospitals and also by giving it good
circulation through the Mainline and Online media.”
More over and very important thing that should be done by the states where there is already anti-violence acts is, that the offense should be categorized as -Non-BAILABLE, COGNIZABLE&NON-COMPOUNDABLE and penalization of imprisonment raised above 7yrs which facilitates police to file such cases under non-bailable IPC sections.
SO , state IMA chapters should strive hard to convince the respective state govts and get amended those state acts to make them more stringent.
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