Women doctors for women inmates only if need genuine: HC

MUMBAI: Observing that “there is no requirement of law that lady inmates cannot be treated by male doctors“, the Bombay high court (HC) asked the state to consider sending women doctors to such prisons after it was informed that some of these prisoners were not comfortable sharing their problems with male doctors.

Prof Vijay Raghavan from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) who is assisting the HC in the suo motu public interest litigation (PIL) pertaining to the increase in death of prison inmates due to the second wave of Covid, sought visitation of women doctors on rotation basis said that he is only stressing on implementing the 2017 prison reforms wherein the health department has been asked to have a panel of female doctors to visit women’s prisons regularly.

On June 10, the division bench of chief justice Dipankar Datta and justice Girish Kulkarni while hearing the PIL was informed by Prof Raghavan of major issues that were faced by jail inmates with regards to the availability of treatment and medical facilities in the jails across the state.

The court said, “There is no requirement of law that lady inmates cannot be treated by male doctors. However, we observe that if for any special reason a female inmate wishes to be attended by a female doctor and the prison authority is convinced that the request is genuine, the due requisition may be sent by prison authorities to the health department for doing the needful.”