Medical Records do not fall under RTI unless public interest is attached

New Delhi, Jan 12 (IANS) The Delhi High Court Tuesday ruled that income tax returns and medical records do not fall under the purview of Right To Information (RTI) Act 'unless public interest is attached' holding in its landmark judgment that the Chief Justice of India (CJI) came under the ambit of the transparency law.
Quoting an American writer that 'one man's freedom of information is another man's invasion of privacy', a full bench of Chief Justice Ajit Prakash Shah and Justices S. Muralidhar and Vikramjit Sen said: 'Personal information including tax returns, medical records etc. cannot be disclosed in view of Section 8(1)(j) of the act.'
'If, however, the applicant can show sufficient public interest in disclosure, the bar (preventing disclosure) is lifted and after duly notifying the third party (the individual concerned with the information or whose records are sought) and after considering his views, the authority can disclose it,' they said.
Highlighting how the right to information often clashes with the right to privacy, the court noted that the government stores a lot of information about individuals, supplied by the individuals themselves in applications made for obtaining various licences, permissions including passports, or through disclosures such as income tax returns or for census data.
'When an applicant seeks access to government records containing personal information concerning identifiable individuals, it is obvious that these two rights are capable of generating conflict,' the court said, adding that 'in some cases, this will involve disclosure of information pertaining to public officials. In others, it will involve disclosure of information concerning ordinary citizens. In each instance, the subject of the information can plausibly raise a privacy protection concern.'
However, the court ruled that notes made by the judges do not come under the RTI act, the court said the notes taken by judges while hearing a case cannot be treated as final views expressed by them on the case. 'They are meant only for the use of the judges and cannot be held to be a part of a record 'held' by the public authority. However, if the judge turns in notes along with the rest of his files to be maintained as a part of the record, the same may be disclosed.'
Maintaining that the right to information may not always have a linkage with the freedom of speech, the court said: 'If a citizen gets information, certainly his capacity to speak will be enhanced.'
'But many a time, he needs information which may have nothing to do with his desire to speak. He may wish to know how an administrative authority has used its discretionary powers. He may need information as to whom the petrol pumps have been allotted. The right to information is required to make the exercise of discretionary powers by the executive transparent and, therefore, accountable because such transparency will act as a deterrent against unequal treatment,' the court said.

Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Bill, 2010

The government has approved a Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Bill, 2010 for bringing all clinics in the country under one law that would go towards creation of a "national registry" and boost health services in the country.
The bill was cleared at a cabinet meeting here presided over by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. It is likely to be introduced in the budget session of Parliament, beginning Feb 22.

MCI norms to prohibit doctors from attending conferences financed by pharma companies

(Source: Times of India, Jan3, 2010.)
Through an amendment in its rules that govern the medical ethics in the country, the Medical Council of India (MCI) has prohibited the medical practitioners from attending seminars or events financed by pharmaceutical companies. “A medical practitioner shall not accept any travel facility inside the country or outside, including rail, air, ship, cruise tickets, paid vacations etc, from any pharmaceutical or allied healthcare industry or their representatives for self and family members for vacation or for attending conferences, seminars, workshops, etc,” reads the MCI (Professional Conduct, Etiquette and Ethics) (Amendment) Regulations, 2009. Last year, major medical events attracted over 10,000 doctors, who were accompanied by their family members, resulting in a huge “tourist” turnout. According to market estimates, during such event the huge “tourist” inflow is a boon for the tourism sector and at least Rs 100 crore was generated last year. However, the prospect of such events appears bleak this year after the new MCI guidelines come into effect. Gifts and all other favours offered by any pharmaceutical or allied health care industry or their representatives have been banned under the amended rules. The recently notified MCI amendment came following the American Medical Association’s efforts to restrain the unethical attempts by certain pharmaceutical companies to influence drug recommendation by the medical practitioners. Medical associations have welcomed of the amendment calling it a positive step. “Some pharmaceutical companies have been promoting corruption for undue benefits, bringing in bad reputation for other pharmaceutical companies as well as medical professionals,” said Dr S S Agarwal, national vice-president of Indian Medical Association. “The amendments will pave the way to have a control over such unethical practices. Even as the immediate impact of the amendment cannot be judged, inclusion of the issue in ethics regulation will help control such activities,” he added. Others in the industry are, however, not quite enthusiastic over the development. “In absence of any strict penalties against such violations, the norms will once again be limited to voluntary efforts. With direct funding coming under scanning, the companies will now look for alternative routes to provide such benefits to their favoured doctors,” said a pharmaceutical trader.

CME on “Medicolegal Report preparation”

Department of Forensic Medicine, DMCH, Ludhiana organized a CME on “Medicolegal Report preparation” on 29th Aug 09. Theme of the CME was: “Improving the Quality of Medicolegal Report preparation”. More than 100 doctors from North India participated in the CME.
Dr. Daljit Singh, Principal DMCH, informed about the various issues related to medicolegal report writing. He informed that the DMCH has pioneered, by organizing an educational program on procedure of medicolegal report writing.
Dr. Gautam Biswas Head, Forensic Medicine, delivered the welcome address. He delivered a lecture on overview of injury report preparation. Dr. BS Shah, Member Punjab Medical Council, informed all the doctors about CME credit hours required by all the doctors’.
Dr. Virendar Pal Singh (Org. Secretary) said that “presently the quality of medicolegal reports prepared is not satisfactory. Many a times, these reports are not serving any purpose in the Court of law. There is an urgent need for the doctors to realize their legal duties in medicolegal cases. He delivered a lecture on “Procedure of Medicolegal report preparation”.
Guest speakers delivered lectures on various issues related to medicolegal report preparation. Dr. Jagjiv Sharma, Head, Forensic Medicine, CMC discussed the need of consent in medical & medicolegal practice. Dr. Sanjeev Uppal, Professor in Plastic Surgery & Dr. Promila Jindal, Professor in Obs. & Gynae, informed the gathering about the medicolegal aspects of burn and rape cases respectively.

SC ticks off doctors for medical negligent cases., The Hindu, May 29, 2009

The Supreme Court on Friday ticked off doctors for increasing number of medical negligence cases being reported in the country.
"Doctors can today do anything. They can leave behind a forcep or a scissor inside a patient's stomach and get away with it.
"Six months down the line when the patient develops pain and comes back, then you would discover the scissor left behind in the stomach and then remove it," a vacation bench of Justices Markandeya Katju and Deepak Verma remarked.
The bench made the remarks while issuing notice to Pintoo Kumar, a victim, on the petition filed by Dr Mahendra Prasad, a doctor who was slapped with a compensation of Rs 4 lakhs by the Bihar State Consumer Commission in a case of alleged medical negligence.
Mr. Kumar had alleged Prasad, a private medical practioner at the Neha Nursing Home, Buxar who had performed an operation on September 16, 2004, to set right a fracture in his right leg, left behind a screw in the operated portion. The alleged negligence resulted in the patient developing "callus formation" warranting another surgery at the Apollo hospital.
According to the victim, Dr. Prasad was not an orthopaedic surgeon but an MBBS with M.S (patho) and yet peformed the operation.

Free treatment: Pvt hospitals under lens

After the High Court lashed out at Apollo Hospital for not treating poor patients for free which was a condition for the hospital being given land at a discounted rate Delhi government health department has suddenly woken up to the rampant violation of the clause by almost all private hospitals who were given such land. It has now decided to post officials in all these hospitals who will not just monitor the status and utilization of these beds but also as instructed by the High Court inform patients in government hospitals about the option. At present, few needy patients ever go to these hospitals for fear of running up massive medical bills. Apollo was on Tuesday pulled up for not treating 33% patients free of cost. With Apollo's bed strength it should ideally have 200 beds where everything including medicines are provided by the hospital. The hospital for getting 15 acres land free of cost and an additional Rs 16 crore from the government is also supposed to have 40% OPD patients free which the HC found is also being violated. Health minister Kiran Walia said: "These hospitals have such an aura that poor patients are scared to go there. That is where these officials will come in. We will ask patients from government hospitals to meet designated officials in each hospital who will help them with their paperwork and see that they get their due.'' While Apollo's case is striking partly because of the huge numbers involved, one glance at the health department's records and it is clear that Apollo is not the only offender. It is clear that few of the 38-odd hospitals who were given land at concessional rates bother to inform the health department about the status of these free beds and as health department sources point out, the government's initiatives to get the information have not traditionally been very aggressive. This, despite the fact that the boards of all these hospitals have the chief secretary, finance secretary and health secretary as members. As many as 16 hospitals including well-known names like Dharamshila Hospital and Research Centre, Jaipur Golden Hospital and Sunderlal Jain Charitable Hospital have not submitted details of the occupancy status of free beds. Health department sources say there is usually a "happy understanding'' between hospitals and the government on free beds which being hospital's usually honour "requests'' from senior officials politicians etc and at times in their records show these patients as having been admitted under the free bed scheme. "This serves both sides and has been continuing all this while. In fact the case in which the ruling has come has been going on for many years now,'' explained an official. Health department's latest records for the status of free beds shows in Dharamshila all 20 are vacant, in Flt Rajan Dhall Hospital (Fortis) and Rockland, each of their 11 free beds are vacant, in Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre 21 of 26 beds are vacant and in Jaipur Golden, all 26 free beds are vacant. Venu Eye Institute, however, is a welcome deviation with 63 free patients admitted against its quota of 42 beds. "One thing that Apollo really stood out in was that they made completely different setups for free beds where there was not enough medical care. This no other hospital did,'' said Walia who says it was her initiative after taking charge of the health department that brought Apollo to book. The PIL on which Tuesday's verdict came was filed by NGO Social Jurist in the mid-nineties.