Thread by @kikumbhar

Many kinds of events r commemorated over social media now. I'd like to invoke this phenomenon & remind ppl of quite a consequential day for healthcare in India. On 13 Nov 1995, the Supreme Court ruled that medical services were indeed covered by the Consumer Protection Act (CPA)

CPA (1986) was a progressive legislation intended to provide people with simpler, more convenient mechanisms (as against courts of law) to demand accountability from those who unethically sold defective goods or provided deficient services.

Soon, ppl began demanding accountability from biomedical doctors & hospitals. The earliest cases wer in Kerala. One of the penalized hospitals went to the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission arguing that doctors & medical services did not, & should not, come under CPA

The Indian Medical Association (IMA) also participated in this appeal. The NCDRC, however, rejected all their arguments (April 1992).

The IMA then decided to move the Supreme Court, & the case quickly became a popular talking point in elite India for the next few years.

Reams of editorials, reports, analyses, journal articles wer written. IMA spent loads of resources in lobbying & organizing. For a while some consumer activists feared that the better-resourced & seemingly powerful IMA would succeed & deal a major setback to the consumer movement

After all, IMA had recruited some hefty lawyers, including a former Solicitor General of India (K Parasaran) & a future SG (Harish Salve), plus A.M. Singhvi et al. Rajeev Dhavan argued for the consumer organizations. (Among Dhavan's more famous cases is the Ayodhya case.)

The SC bench (SC Agrawal, Kuldip Singh, BL Hansaria), howev, rejected all the hefty arguments & ruled in favor of consumer orgs, in d judgment 'Indian Medical Association vs V.P. Shantha & Ors'. [I'l b grateful to anyone who can tel me who VP Shantha is]
indiankanoon.org/doc/723973/

While many doctors today resent the CPA, it is also true that corruption and malpractice in medical care continue to be widespread - which points to the fact that a large majority of erring doctors and hospital management have found ways to save themselves from the CPA whip.

Among the unfortunate consequences is the extortion of doctors by local goons & karyakartas. Smaller nursing homes & hospitals r probably more adversely (& disproportionately) affected than bigger corporate hospitals & those run by tycoons with political connections.

Still, instead of demanding a special way out, it might be better for doctors to align with activist orgs & help make health services more accessible & affordable for everyone. Universal Healthcare through a robust govt health system cud lead to far fewer patient-doctor conflicts

Let me take this occasion to share an insightful analysis done as early as 1992, before even the SC judgment. Written by a young Mumbai doctor, one who still writes for us & continues to maintain the moral clarity seen in this 30-yr-old essay @sanjaynagral
jpgmonline.com/text.asp?1992/…