Express
News Service: New Delhi: Friday, 22 August 2014.
In a relief
to patients, the Union Law Ministry on Thursday advised the Health and Family
Welfare Ministry to issue instructions to hospitals to provide patients their
complete medical records, deeming it their right.
In a letter
to Health Secretary Lov Verma, his Law Ministry counterpart P K Malhotra
pointed out that according to the Central Information Comission’s (CIC) July 23
order, a patient’s right to his/her medical records is rooted in articles 19
and 21 of the Constitution. The hospital authorities have a duty to provide the
same under RTI Act, Consumer Protection Act, Medical Council Act and world
medical ethics, Malhotra added in the letter. “Patients have a right to get
their medical records from hospitals and the Health Ministry. If there are
existing instructions to this effect, the same need to be reiterated and the
concerned authorities sensitised about the same,” Malhotra said in the letter.
The Law
Ministry secretary contended that most of the time, hospital authorities do not
provide details of the treatment administered to a patient. He added that easy
availability of medical records would help patients avoid approaching the
courts.
The Law
Ministry’s intervention came after the CIC ordered the disclosure of
information to a former official of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). Nisha
Priya Bhatia, a former official of RAW, had sought her medical records from the
Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences, where she had been admitted
on orders of the Delhi High Court. Initially, the records were refused to her
as the hospital cited Section 8(1)(h) of the RTI Act, which allows an authority
to withhold information that would impede an investigation. Bhatia had alleged
before the CIC that her superiors antagonised her for no reason and started
withdrawing her privileges as an officer. Gradually and ultimately her chair
was also removed leaving her with no place to sit and work.
Bhatia had
alleged that there was a “deliberate conspiracy” and attempt to depict her as a
mentally sick person just because she had filed complaints against her
superiors.
In his order,
CIC Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu rejected the hospital’s contention and said
the patient needed the medical records to defend her case before an appropriate
forum. He added that patients have a right to their medical records under the
Constitution. He further said that hospitals have a duty to provide the same
under Right to Information Act, 2005, Consumer Protection Act, 1986 and the
Medical Council Act, 1956.
“It is the duty of the doctor or hospital to
develop a mechanism whereby copy of patients’ medical record from his joining
to his discharge be provided to him or his legal representatives even without
the patient asking as matter of routine procedure as the time of discharge as
directed by Bombay HC in the referred case,” the order said.
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