Any lapse in stating COVID-19 as cause of demise in death certificate will have penal penalties, says Centre in SC
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‘All deaths with a diagnosis of COVID-19, irrespective of co-morbidities, are to be classified as deaths due to COVID-19,’ the Centre clarified.
Any lapse in stating COVID-19 as the cause of demise in a death certificate will have penal penalties for these discovered accountable, together with the certifying physician, the Centre has warned in the Supreme Court.
“It is mandated that any death resulting from COVID-19 shall have to be so certified i.e. as COVID death, failing which, everyone responsible, including the certifying doctor, shall be responsible for penal consequences,” the Centre mentioned in its affidavit on Sunday.
The authorities additional clarified that deaths with a analysis of COVID-19, irrespective of co-morbidities, needed to be licensed as COVID-19 deaths. The solely exception to the rule was when there was a transparent various cause of death, for instance, unintentional trauma, poisoning, and many others.
The Supreme Court just lately informed the Centre that death certificates of those that succumbed to COVID-19 virus typically didn’t reveal that truth. “The death certificates of persons who die from COVID in hospitals show the reason as lung or heart problem or something else,” Justice M.R. Shah had addressed Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, for the Centre, just lately.
“All deaths with a diagnosis of COVID-19, irrespective of co-morbidities, are to be classified as deaths due to COVID-19,” the Centre clarified.
The authorities mentioned ‘death certification’ was required for recording deaths in accordance with the laws prescribed by the Registrar General of India.
“The primary goal of certification of cause of death [death certificate] is to identify and correctly classify all deaths due to a medical condition [eg. COVID-19] and to eliminate any discrepancy in coding so as to obtain true estimates of burden of COVID-19 deaths,” the Centre defined.
It mentioned “any breach of the guidelines for recording COVID-19 deaths would be a criminal offence as stipulated under Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code”. This provision punishes disobedience to an order duly promulgated by a public servant.
In truth, non-adherence to authorities pointers on recording COVID-19 deaths would quantity to contempt of court docket, the Centre identified. This is as a result of the Supreme Court had final 12 months in Alakh Alok Srivastava case associated to COVID-19 monitoring mentioned that “disobedience to an order promulgated by a public servant would result in punishment under Section 188 IPC”.
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