RAW officer gets access to her medical records
posted on Jul 26, 2014 11:32AM
In a significant hearing the Central Information Commissioner Madabhushi Sridhar, said that every patient has the right to access his medical records from the government hospitals, corporate hospitals and private doctors. In a case where a senior former RAW official Nisha Priya Bhatia was admitted to the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences by the Delhi High Court on afalse medical report and had sought access to the medical records from the Institute but was refused. The institute had refused to give her the records, citing Section 8(1)(h) of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, which allows an authority to withhold information that could impede an investigation.
Mr Madabhushi Sridhar rejected the contention, saying patients’ right to their medical records was rooted in the Constitution and under Section 2(f) of the RTI Act, 2005 and that the Hospitals and private doctors are bound to give the records when asked upon by the patient. The lady official was being harassed by her superiors and they had filed a petition on false evidence that she was of unsound mind and the Delhi high court had ordered for her to be put in the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences for a month.
These records were needed to show that she was not mentally sick and was fit enough to work and fight her case and the CIC ruled in her favour to access her medical records.