Amal Umer Bill

A necessary law that removes a major cause of delay in getting people with serious injuries into emergency rooms

The Sindh government has approved a bill to allow seriously ill or injured people to receive treatment at hospitals before their medico-legal formalities are completed. This is a welcome and necessary law that removes a major cause of delay in getting people with serious injuries into emergency rooms. The Sindh Injured Persons’ Compulsory Medical Treatment Bill is also being called the Amal Umer Bill to honour the 10-year-old girl who died after being injured by a stray bullet in a police shootout in Karachi last August. Her eventual death was blamed on the alleged negligence by the hospital she was rushed to.

Amal’s parents were present in the assembly gallery when the bill went to vote. This is the second attempt to pass such a bill in the last three years. The provincial government had passed the ‘Sindh Injured Persons (Medical Aid) Bill 2014’ to treat patients without waiting for police clearance, but the government failed to implement it. The new bill contains penalties for hospitals that fail to provide ‘first-aid’ to people having received a gunshot wound or injured in a traffic accident or an assault or by any other cause.

It also bars private hospitals from sending away patients that cannot afford emergency treatment. If the injured person lacks means, the government will cover costs. In such instances, the injured persons would be shifted to a government hospital immediately after their condition stabilises. The bill also requires all hospitals to have at least two fully equipped and operational ambulances stationed at the hospital at all times and bars law-enforcement officials from interfering with compulsory treatment in attempts to interrogate an injured person. After the bill was introduced, the Speaker formed a special committee comprising four treasury and three opposition members for further feedback, which would be finalised before the end of the week. We hope that positive suggestions are accepted and a potentially life-saving law becomes a reality soon.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 26^th, 2019.

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