What's the article about?
- It talks about doctor protests in Rajasthan over the Rajasthan government's Right to Health Act, 2022.
Relevance:
- GS2: Issues Relating to Development and Management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health; Welfare Schemes for Vulnerable Sections of the population by the Centre and States and the Performance of these Schemes;
- Essay;
- Prelims
Context:
- Thousands of doctors took to the streets in Rajasthan Monday to protest against the Right to Health Bill, hitting healthcare services across the state.
- The Indian Medical Association (IMA), the country’s largest physician association, has announced its support to the Rajasthan doctors.
- The Bill was passed in the Rajasthan state Assembly last week.
What is the Right to Health Bill?
- The recently passed Right to Health Bill allows every resident of Rajasthan to avail of Outpatient Department (OPD), In-Patient Department (IPD) and emergency services without prepayment at any public health institution, health care establishment and designated health care centres.
- And in case the patient does not pay upon discharge, the hospital can ask the government for reimbursement of the expenses.
- Further, the Bill states that private hospitals cannot deny treatment to any patient citing police clearance requirements if it is a medico-legal case.
- All patients will be entitled to healthcare services including consultation, drugs, diagnostics, emergency transport, and procedure. This provision will be subject to conditions specified in rules that are yet to be formulated.
Why are the doctors protesting?
- The doctors have said that they have a problem with the bill’s provisions for providing emergency healthcare for free.
- Doctors believe that the Bill violates provisions of the Minimum Wages Act under which a private worker can't be forced to work for free.
- The Bill also punishes anyone violating the provisions of providing free emergency healthcare under the scheme with up to Rs 10,000 in fine for the first such incident and up to Rs 25,000 for the subsequent incidents.
- Though the bill clearly states that the hospitals can seek reimbursement from the government, the protesting doctors have shown apprehensions that the government has not clarified how and when these funds will be transferred to the hospitals.
- Doctors have also raised concerns over the definition of an emergency which has not been defined in the Right To Health Bill.
- In addition, the doctors are also saying that the bill will largely increase the bureaucratic interference in the functioning of the emergency department of the hospitals.
Analysis:
- The Rajasthan Right to Health Act, 2022, addresses key issues of access and affordability.
- It “seeks to provide protection and fulfilment of rights, equity in relation to health and well-being for achieving the goal of health care for all through guaranteed access to quality health care for all residents of the State, without any catastrophic out-of-pocket expenditure”.
- The law, which also provides for a social audit and grievance redress, gives every resident of the State the right to emergency treatment without paying a single paisa to any health-care institution, and specifies that private health-care institutions would be compensated for the charges incurred for such treatment.
- The doctors who came out in large numbers to protest the law on the streets of Jaipur said they were distrustful of the government’s promise of recompense for expenses incurred for treating patients during an emergency.
- To the charge that there is no detailing of the process, health right activists have pointed out that it would be a function of the Rules, not the law itself.
- The protesting doctors also claimed to be apprehensive of the government’s interference in their functioning once the law is enforced.
- Ironically, all of them believe that health care is a right of the people; only, they believe that the State would have to be the sole provider.
- However, this is scarcely the first such exposition of the right to health.
- In 1989, the Supreme Court observed that “every injured citizen brought for medical treatment should instantaneously be given medical aid to preserve life and thereafter the procedural criminal law should be allowed to operate in order to avoid negligent death”.
Way Forward:
- Having transformed a progressive ideal into law, Rajasthan should now strive to gain the trust of the doctors through demonstrable action.
- It is also incumbent upon the doctors to rise above the differences, and work with the government to save human lives.
