Gauhati HC Awards 25 Lakh Compensation To Family Of Pregnant Woman Who Died On Her Way To Hospital 130 Km Away [Read Judgment]

The Gauhati High Court has directed the Nagaland Government to provide Rupees 25 lakh as exemplary compensation to the family of a pregnant woman who died on her way to District Hospital which was 130 Kilometers away from her Village.

Right to life includes the right to primary health care, said Justice Songkhupchung Serto holding that it is the duty of the state to provide primary health care.

The son of the deceased woman had approached the Kohima bench of the High Court and submitted that as per the Indian Public Health Standards (IPHS) Guidelines for Sub-Centres, the Type-B Sub-Centre in their village was supposed to have all those basic facilities for conducting deliveries. But since the Sub-Centre was also closed on that day and no proper facilities for delivery was available, his family were left with no choice but to take his mother to the district hospital.

While considering the plea, the court said: If they have been alive and doing their duties the Sub-centre of the village would have been active and vibrant and such unfortunate incident would have been prevented. In fact, such incident does not seem to have shocked the conscience of the people at every level responsible. If they were, one would have seen some action taken to make some people accountable so that at least such incident does not occur again in the future.

Referring to some Supreme Court judgments, the court observed that the right to healthy life is inherent in Article 21, therefore, health and medical care comes within the sweep of Article 21. It added: "Right to healthy life refers to and mean the most attainable levels of health that every human being is entitled to. Health has been much regarded as the basic and fundamental human right by the International community under international human rights law. In contrast to all the other human rights, the right to health creates an obligation upon the State to ensure that the right to health is respected, protected and fulfilled, and is duly entitled to all its citizens." 

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