Private hospitals should take care of security issues on their own, says SC

Delhi, Sep 06: The Supreme Court on Monday told the Delhi Medical Association (DMA) that private hospitals are like business enterprises and they should make their own safety arrangements to take care of the security of their doctors and healthcare workers from the angry relatives of patients.

The SC was hearing of a plea seeking directions to provide security to doctors and healthcare workers.

A bench of Justices S K Kaul and A S Oka told advocate Vijay Hansaria that DMA was citing examples from the COVID period when short supply of oxygen led to chaos and attacks on doctors and healthcare workers.

The court noted that those were rare circumstances and said could the court step into an area where it cannot monitor.

Advocate Sneha Kalita told the bench that doctors feel insecure as many cases of attacks on doctors happened in various states. The bench said that it is not a threat perceived from a terror organisation that the court would direct security cover to all doctors and health workers. There is adequate security in the government hospitals, the bench added.

The bench said, "We are not willing to direct the governments to make security arrangements in private hospitals. The private hospitals have to make their own security arrangements."