The Supreme Court recently had directed all the hospitals that provide COVID treatment to patients to ensure that all necessary documents with regards to the treatment are provided to the family members of the deceased patients as and when demanded by them.
The observations were made in relation to the documents required in order to establish Covid as the reason for death in order to enable the next of kin of that family to get the ex-gratia compensation and funds that were being provided to families of Covid death victims.
A bench has made it clear that if any hospital or the place where the deceased had taken treatment refuses to provide the given documents, the Grievances Redressal Committee is authorized to call for such information and the details and formalities as required for establishing that any given death was due to Covid-19, will have to be produced.
The Bench had also directed that the next of the kin of the deceased who died due to Covid-19 will also be paid an ex-gratia amount of Rs.50,000 which will be the minimum and over which the compensation was to be paid by the Centre/State Governments under different relevant schemes.
