High Court calls Tripura govt insensitive over health directorate officer's negative attitude towards medical bills reimbursement

By Our Correspondent

Agartala, July 27, 2024

The Tripura High Court has reacted strongly against the state government's mechanistic, insensitive and short-sighted attitude towards payment of medical expenses. Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh yesterday ordered the state government to pay the petitioner's medical reimbursement (MR) bill of Rs. 11 lakh 71 thousand 180 within six weeks. Chief Justice of Tripura High Court Hon'ble Chief Justice Apresh Singh termed the negative attitude of the officials of the Health Department of Tripura as an act of ignorance.

It is known that the writ petitioner Minti Das, who is working as an office of the police Department, was admitted to the GB Hospital on September 8, 2021 due to physical illness. After examination, it is seen that there has been severe bleeding in the brain. The Medical Board referred the applicant to ILS Hospital on September 9.

The applicant was admitted and treated at ILS Hospital till September 15. The applicant was urgently referred Kolkata from the ILS Hospital for better treatment due to serious deterioration of her physical condition during the course of treatment. When the she recovered after treatment and applied for medical bill reimbursement, the health department refused to pay this money. The health department said that the medical board referred the patient to the ILS hospital. So she will not get reimbursement expenses in Kolkata for advance treatment. In this case, in the case filed in the High Court, the lawyer for the patient, Purushottam Roy Barman, said that the patient was sent to Kolkata from ILS Hospital. Otherwise the patient would have died. And if the patient was again sent to Kolkata with the permission of the medical board, it would have taken a lot of time. So from a humanitarian point of view, the patient should be given medical reimbursement.

High Court Chief Justice Aparesh Singh, after hearing the arguments of the government and the patient, expressed displeasure at the Tripura government's health department officials for forcing the patient to go to court without taking a speedy decision on human rights issues such as medical bill reimbursement. And termed such decision by health department officials as insensitive. And ordered to pay the patient's medical bill reimbursement soon.

Allegedly, not one or two such cases, recently a class of officers are forcing ordinary people to go to court unnecessarily while showing their administrative power. The government is losing hundreds of such cases in court. But for this there is no system of accountability of bureaucrats, officers and employees. As a result, the image of the government is being tarnished unnecessarily.