To make healthcare legal right, Punjab mulls new law

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 18

Meeting the long-pending demand of public health activists seeking protection of health rights, the state government has prepared the Punjab State Public Health Bill, 2021. The draft of the Bill is ready and has been circulated for feedback from public.

According to activists, once the Bill becomes an Act, it will provide for protection of rights in relation to health and well-being and will be instrumental in achieving universal health coverage.

“Apart from bringing synchronisation in multiple departments, it will make health and healthcare services a legal right, which can be defended in a court of law,” said an expert associated with the drafting of the Bill. After feedback from public, the Bill will be taken up by the Cabinet and may be tabled in the Assembly for approval.

The draft states that health is a fundamental human right and intricately linked with the exercise of all other human rights. As per the details, it aims to set a broad legal framework for providing essential public health services and functions, including powers to respond to public health emergencies, principally through the state and local self-government, in collaboration with all other sectors.

“There is a need to have an overarching legal framework and a common set of standards, norms and values to facilitate the governments’ stewardship of private health sector as a partner as well as for a more effective operation of other existing and future public health-related laws enacted at the state level and to unite them,” the draft notes.

One of the important provisions of the Bill is that it gives power to the state to make it compulsory for the private healthcare establishments to notify 34 diseases listed in Schedule II (drugs having a high potential for abuse).

For formulating, negotiating and adopting the state policy on public health and ensuring that there is a policy revision every five years and that the plans and policies for public health and the expenditure on health are consistent, the Bill has a provision for forming a state public health board. The board will consist of 30 members with the Chief Minister as the chairman. On the lines of the state, a district public health board will also be established with the zila parishad head as the chairman.

Aimed at achieving universal coverage

• The Bill provides for protection of rights in relation to health and well-being, and will be instrumental in achieving universal health coverage
• It aims at setting up a legal framework to give essential public health services through state and local self-government
• It will allow state to make it compulsory for private establishments to notify 34 diseases listed in Schedule II (drugs having a high potential for abuse)