Bombay HC asks Centre whether private practitioners on COVID duty are entitled to Rs 50 lakh insurance cover

According to recent media accounts, the division bench of honourable Justice SJ Kathawalla and Riyaz Chagla has directed the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to clarify the stand by January 7, 2021.

In March this year, the Central government announced that all healthcare workers at risk of contracting Covid could apply for insurance under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package. Under the scheme, claimants can receive up to Rs 50 lakh in case of death.

The bench questioned whether a private practitioner, who dies of Covid-19 in the line of his duty, would also be given the benefit of Rs 50 lakh insurance under the scheme.

This came in view of a petition filed by a widow of a Navi Mumbai-based Ayurveda doctor who moved the high court seeking a direction to the New India Assurance Company Limited to immediately disburse her claim of ₹50 lakh under the scheme.

In her petition, the woman said her husband, an Ayurveda doctor, was practicing locally in Navi Mumbai. As Covid-19 started spreading across the state, the practitioner received a notice from the commissioner of Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) on March 31 asking him to keep his dispensary open and warned to prosecute him under section 188 of the Indian Penal Code if he failed to do so.

She claimed that the practitioner had to open his dispensary in terms of the notice and treat patients, including persons infected by Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. Eventually, he contracted the infection and died on June 10.

Following his death, the wife submitted a claim for compensation of ₹50 lakh with New India Assurance Company under PMGKP on August 2. However, as the insurance company rejected her claim on September 7 because the deceased was not serving in any hospital designated to treat only Covid-19 patients and was a private practitioner, she moved the high court.

The petitioner further argued that her husband had initially shut his clinic and opened only after the civic chief of Navi Mumbai issued a notice to him. "In the notice issued in March, an explanation was sought from the private doctors as to why their hospitals and dispensaries are kept closed. Under the said notice, my husband had to open his clinic and treat patients including those infected by the Covid-19 virus. He thus consequently himself got infected by the virus and died in June," she said, as quoted by the Free Press Journal.

Responding to the petition during the hearing, the assistant government pleader appearing for the state pointed out that the state sent a proposal to the Union health ministry to include even private practitioners in the PMGKP scheme. The counsel informed that on October 1 wrote a letter requesting the Union health and family welfare ministry to extend the benefit of insurance cover to private practitioners as well.

It was pointed out that the request was made especially because the Government of Maharashtra had mandated the opening of all clinical establishments and had also regulated rates of treatment for private healthcare providers as well.

"In Maharashtra, considering the current scenario of Covid-19 situation, OPD (out-patient department) and IPD (in-patient department) services, screening, examination, treatment and follow-ups in field settings or private clinics and hospitals, all are associated with professional hazard of contracting Covid-19 and related fatalities," stated the letter referred by the counsel.

"So request you to please consider the inclusion of all private healthcare providers/workers who have continued delivery of healthcare services during this pandemic, endangering their lives and many have died due to Covid-19 while serving humanity and nation," the letter added.

The counsel further told the bench that the Union is yet to respond to the state's proposal.

Noticing that the health ministry has not responded to the letter to date, the high court directed the secretary of the department to respond to the letter within two weeks. HC has now posted the petition for further hearing on January 7, 2021, reports Hindustan Times.