Report No. 201
(A) We recommend statutory duties on hospitals and medical practitioners
We, therefore, recommend a section in the proposed law to make it mandatory to direct medical assistance in accidents and emergencies precluding the hospitals or doctors from raising any objection on the following grounds:-
(a) that it is a medico-legal case requiring information to be given to the police authorities, or
(b) that the person is not immediately in a position to make payment for screening and emergency medical treatment or that immediate payment should be made as a condition precedent for treatment, or
(c) that the person does not have medical insurance or is not a member of any medical scheme providing for medical reimbursement.
In addition, we propose that "no other unreasonable objection" can be raised for giving emergency medical treatment.
The draft of the proposed section 3 is as follows:
"3 Duty of duty doctors in hospitals and private medical practitioners- It shall be the duty of every hospital and every medical practitioner to immediately attend on every person involved in an accident or who is purportedly in an emergency condition, when such a person has come or has been brought to the hospital or to the private medical practitioner and screen or transfer such person as stated in section 4 and when the screening reveals the existence of an emergency medical condition, to stabilize or transfer such person as stated in section 5 and afford them, such medical treatment as may be urgently called for -
(i) without raising any objection that it is a medico-legal case requiring information to the police authorities,
(ii) whether or not such a person is immediately in a position to make payment for screening and emergency medical treatment, and without insisting on payment as a condition precedent.
(iii) whether or not such a person has medical insurance or is a member of any medical scheme of the person's employer or to a scheme which otherwise provides for medical reimbursement, and
(iv) without raising any other unreasonable objection."
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