Hospitals can’t confine bodies for unpaid bills: HC

The High Court (HC) today issued an order against confining bodies of poor dead patients for unpaid hospital bills to mount pressures on their relatives to clear outstanding dues.

A HC bench comprising Justice Syed Muhammad Dastagir Husain and Justice Md Ataur Rahman Khan issued the order asking the health secretary and health services’ director general to inform the decision to all hospitals and health facilities across the country through a circular.

The bench also directed them to create a fund for paying unpaid treatment bills of poor people, reports BSS.

he order came in response to a writ petition by Advocate Manzill Murshid on behalf of Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh in 2012 which was based on a newspaper report that private City Hospital in Dhaka did not hand over a dead child’s body to its family members as they failed to pay full medical costs.

The HC simultaneously ordered the City Hospital authorities to donate Tk 5,000 to Anzuman Mafidul Islam as expiation of its inhuman decision saying its refusal to hand over the body was an act of human rights violation.