The much awaited Kerala Healthcare Service Persons and Healthcare Service Institutions (Prevention of Violence and Damage to Property) Amendment Bill, 2023, intended to replace the ordinance on the same passed by the Cabinet in May this year, was the first legal business that the legislature attended to when the ninth session of the 15th Kerala Assembly met on Tuesday.
The ordinance amending the Kerala Healthcare Service Persons and Healthcare Service Institutions (Prevention of Violence and Damage to Property) Act, 2012 by including stringent penal provisions against the perpetrators of violence on hospitals/doctors had been passed by the Cabinet in May this year. The ordinance was occasioned by the murder of young house surgeon Vandana Das by a patient at the Kottarakara taluk hospital .
The discussion on the Bill ranged from the failing Kerala model of health and the frailties of the State’s health system to apprehensions that the Bill could turn out to be too one-sided and that it needed to include provisions protecting patient rights also.
Opening the discussion, Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala listed many of the deficiencies plaguing the health system and pointed out that unless these were addressed, a new law to prevent violence against health workers could not be effective.
K.B. Ganesh Kumar said the Bill, which sought to penalise verbal abuse against health workers also, spoke nothing about patient rights. Anoop Jacob also expressed his concern that the proposed provisions in the Bill could be “misused”.
Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan expounded on the fact that even before the ordinance was passed by the Cabinet, the law required the police to file an FIR within an hour of the incident. He pointed out several inconsistencies in the FIR filed by the police in the Vandana Das murder case to establish that the mere existence of a law would not cut it but that those handling the law needed to be more efficient and conscientious about implementing it properly.
The argument that patient rights needed more protection and that the proposed Bill was one-sided was raised by many ruling Bench MLAs such as V.K. Prasanth.
Health Minister Veena George, in her reply, said the Bill, which makes all aggressions against health-care workers, including verbal abuse, a punishable offence, was expected to be a deterrent to violence and help build a work environment in which doctors could work safely and feel more confident.
She said the Bill was just the legal part of the systemic changes that the government was initiating in all hospitals to improve safety. Safety audits had been completed in hospitals in all districts and the government had initiated many positive steps, including setting up of CCTVs, enhanced security systems in hospitals, police outposts in main hospitals, creating patient-friendly hospital systems and the new Code Grey protocol for hospitals.
She said the government was mindful about the need for protecting patient rights and that a three-tier grievances redressal mechanism was being set up so that patients could raise their concerns too.
She proposed that the Bill be sent to the subject committee so that the concerns raised by the members could be discussed further and the House seconded the resolution.
