JJ Hospital ‘bias’ lands Naco, Centre in soup

NEW DELHI: The supreme court (SC) issued notices to the Centre and National Aids Control Organisation (Naco) on Thursday to ensure regular treatment to a poor Aids patient who was denied “second line of ante-retroviral (ARV) drugs” by Mumbai’s prestigious JJ Hospital, saying the medicines were available “only to Maharashtrians”.

A bench of justices KG Balakrishnan, P Sathasivam and JM Panchal will hear the patient’s petition, filed by lawyer Colin Gonsalves, on September 29.

Gonsalves came to know of the sorry plight of the Bihar patient, who is on deathbed, from friends. His HIV+ status was first confirmed by Patna Medical College and Hospital in 2005. He has a low CD4 count – a crucial medical parameter to determine the health of Aids patients.

The Bihar hospital told him early this year that the “first line of ARV drugs” used to treat patients in the initial stage of Aids was not working for him as the human immunodeficiency virus that causes Aids had developed resistance to it.

Now, he needed “second line of ARV drugs”, used to treat advanced-stage patients. With the treatment not available in any Bihar government hospital, he was advised to buy the drugs worth Rs6,000 from the open market.

The patient bought the medicines for the first few months selling his property at a throwaway price. When he ran out of money to sustain the treatment, he approached Bihar Network of People with HIV+ (BNP+), which advised him to approach JJ Hospital in Mumbai for free treatment.

But the hospital allegedly denied him the same saying he was not a Maharashtrian.
b_rakesh@dnaindia.net