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Plea seeking aid for treatment: Get lung machines in all districts, says SC
Married for a little over a year, the woman, Sheela Mehra (31), from Madhya Pradesh had approached the top court in July with the request for ₹1 crore assistance from the PM Cares Fund, PM Relief Fund or Chief Minister Relief Fund to save her ailing husband, Manish Kumar Gohiya .
The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Centre to consider the possibility of arranging a lung support machine called ECMO in every district as it came across a petition filed by a woman seeking financial assistance for her husband whose lungs were completely damaged due to Covid-19 in May.
Married for a little over a year, the woman, Sheela Mehra (31), from Madhya Pradesh had approached the top court in July with the request for ₹1 crore assistance from the PM Cares Fund, PM Relief Fund or Chief Minister Relief Fund to save her ailing husband, Manish Kumar Gohiya . Since July 7, he has been on ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) support at Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS), Secunderabad, which requires a daily expense of close to ₹1.5 lakh.
The man was earlier admitted to All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhopal, on May 14. From there, he was flown to Telangana in an air ambulanceon June 2 and admitted to Yashoda Hospital in Hyderabad before being shifted to KIMS hospital that had the ECMO facility.
The woman has already spent close to ₹1 crore on his medical expenses and had outstanding dues of ₹10 lakh towards the hospital. She exhausted all her savings and property too and needed another ₹55 lakh for a lung transplant. The ECMO machine has allowed her husband to stay alive and he would need its support until the surgery.
Last week, a bench of justices L Nageswara Rao and Aniruddha Bose had issued a notice to the Centre on humanitarian grounds while making it clear that the petitioner had no legal right to claim monetary assistance. On Wednesday, solicitor general Tushar Mehta appeared for the Centre and informed the court that the petitioner had been allocated ₹3 lakh from the PM Cares Fund, and altogether ₹5 lakh was approved for payment to the hospital fromcentral funds.
“How is it going to help? She is already incurring close to ₹1.5 lakh per day for the ECMO machine. Why can’t the Centre consider having ECMO machines at the district level?” the bench said.
Mehta said this suggestion could be considered. “I will personally take it up with the health minister,” he said.
The petitioner, represented by advocate Mukesh Kumar, submitted to the court that the question ultimately was to save a human life and this was a classic case where a woman had gone much beyond her means to save her husband.
Last week, while issuing the notice, the court had indicated the danger of entertaining such pleas. “Our sympathies are with you but the remedy you are resorting to is not correct. Imagine in this vast country, there will be thousands of people asking us to consider paying the medical expenses for their loved ones that can extend even beyond ₹1 crore,” the court had said.
As a last resort, the bench asked the petitioner to check with KIMS hospital to find out if any charitable trust could sponsor the treatment. The bench said it was aware of some private hospitals in Telangana that have tie-ups with charitable trusts that help people who are not financially well off.
The court posted the matter for further hearing on Friday.
