Talking Point: Govt regrets AIIMS incident, assures help

New Delhi: It took five days and a court order before AIIMS finally gave admission to a tribal boy with a bullet lodged in his head. The incident comes within days of rolling out the red carpet for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

CNN-IBN spoke with Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss who assured Shivlal Soren will get the best treatment possible.

CNN-IBN: How do you react to one of the countries premier medical institute refusing treatment to a boy with a bullet stuck in his head?

Ramadoss: It’s an unfortunate incident. If it was true and I have already asked for more info about it, I will be ordering inquiry into it and it should not happen in an institution like AIIMS.

CNN-IBN: What makes this case more tragic is that the same hospital pulled out everything for the PM - of course no one grudges that - but a common man is bound to feel that he is not a priority.

Ramadoss: No body should be turned away and nobody will be turned away. This is an isolated incident because someone may have expressed a little apprehension because of bullet wound or for fear of a legal case. Definitely we will look into this and it does not happen in future.

CNN-IBN: All these days it’s not just AIIMS but no hospital - private or govt - that came to his rescue. The court had to intervene to finally get a young boy admitted into a hospital. Isn't that a sorry state of affairs?

Ramadoss: We are bringing in a clinical establishment act now. It is a bill and is nearing introduction in Parliament after a lot of hard work. Some feature of the bill is that all the hospitals and labs will be regulated. They need to have Indian public health standard, have to follow these standards and also need to put the mechanism to fulfill all this standard, failing which they won’t get permission to function. After about two to three years we will be accrediting them according to the facilities they have. That is an option but they have to maintain minimum basic health standard.

Another important aspect will be that no patient will be turned away for want of emergency care in an any hospital in India, be it public or private hospital. Any life-threatening emergency like road accident can’t be turned away. They have to be treated and their lives should be saved. Any one turned away will be penalised.

CNN-IBN: Is there an assurance that Shivlal will get the best medical attention?

Ramadoss: Yes he will be given best possible treatment.