The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) had taken suo motu cognizance of a media report alleging doctors’ apathy towards an AIDS patient in a hospital in Meerut, and had issued notices to the Secretary, Department of Health, and Senior Superintendent of Police, Meerut, calling for detailed reports within four weeks.
According to official communiqué, the Commission has observed that discrimination or denial of a patient on the basis of HIV/AIDS are anathema to human rights. The contents of the media report, if true, raise serious questions about the violation of human rights of the victim.
The release further said that as per the media report, the doctors at lala lajpat Rai Memorial Medical College in Meerut, not only openly declared an expecting mother as an AIDS patient by pasting a big piece of paper on her bed that screamed ‘Bio Hazard +ve’ but also made her to clean her medical waste. A senior doctor also abused the woman for ‘bringing another deceased child into the world’. The woman, aged 30 years, was admitted to the hospital for a caesarian delivery on the 19th June, 2015.
Reportedly, due to this hand written pamphlet, all her relatives and friends who visited her at the hospital have now come to know of her HIV +ve status adding to the woman’s extreme anxiety. The hospital authorities confirmed the ‘unfortunate incident’ and said they had already apologized to the patient.