State should enhance medical facilities for its employees: Madras high court
Chennai: The Madras high court has held that it is the duty of the state government to ensure that either the standard of the state medical facilities should be enhanced with the state of the art quality/facility for treatment on par with private medical facilities or till such time such parity is achieved by the state, it must provide all necessary financial assistance to its employees/pensioners to take care of their medical needs through the private sector.
Justice R.Suresh Kumar gave the ruling while passing orders on a batch of petitions, challenging the orders of the authorities, rejecting their claim for medical reimbursement under the New Health Insurance Scheme.
“In order to fulfill this obligation, the government had introduced and implemented the successive Health Insurance Schemes for its employees and pensioners. Therefore, it is the obligation of the state either to provide medical facilities on their own, of course on par with private medical facilities, otherwise they must be kept enabled to avail such facilities through private sector”, the judge added.
The judge said Right to Health was an integral part of Right to Life under Article 21 of the Constitution. This theory of the State’s obligation towards Right to Health for its citizen was not an invention of our Constitution makers alone, as this obligation had been felt at thousands of years back in Sangam Age in this part of the country i.e., Tamil Nadu, the judge pointed out.
Quoting several couplets from Thirukkural, the judge said free from disease or epidemics i.e., Right to Health was an important facet of any welfare state. The state must explore all possible resources and implement all such welfare schemes to ensure such Right to Health situation to its citizens. “In order to achieve the said avowed goal as quoted by Saint Thiruvalluvar, the state government, being the welfare State, must be in a position to protect its citizens, especially, in the present context, its employees and erstwhile employees, from all health issues. Therefore, the obligation of the state government and their duty towards achieving this goal cannot be abdicated on any flimsy or technical reasons. Therefore, viewing from this angle also, the state government’s obligation cannot be easily given up or washed away in the manner it has been done in these cases. Therefore, this court is of the considered view that, none of the orders passed in this batch of cases are sustainable”, the judge added.
The judge said even though District Level Empowered Committee have been constituted headed by the District Collector concerned, in some of the cases, if this court look at the decision making process as well as end result of the decision taken by the Empowered Committee, it was hardly to believe whether any application of mind has been made by the Empowered Committee against each of the claim before taking a decision either to accept or reject the claim. In number of cases, very mechanically rejection orders have been passed with one word or one line reason, that itself was unacceptable or unsustainable.
