Covid-19 survivors also entitled to compensation: lawyers

After health experts lawyers too feel that Covid19 survivors should also be compensated as the disease has been declared a pandemic under the National Disaster Management Authority NDMA Act The Supreme Court last month directed the Centre to decide an exgratia amount for the next of kin of Coronavirus victimsSenior Advocate Dinesh Tiwari said the SCrsquos judgment ldquodoesnrsquot delve into compensation for injury caused due to Covid19rdquo An injured victim here means a person who was diagnosed and treated for Covid19 ldquoWith regards to injury the SC judgment is silent but as per the NDMA Act the government is bound to pay for the damages to the injuredrdquoldquoSubsection iii of Section 12 of the NDMA Act 2005 mandates that the National Authority the NDMA shall recommend guidelines for minimum standard of relief to persons affected by the disaster which shall include exgratia assistance on account of loss of life and also assistance on account of damage to houses and for restoration of means of livelihoodrdquo said Floyd Gracias Supreme Court counsel and Bombay High Court advocate ldquoThe term lsquoshallrsquo indicates that it is a directive and not discretionaryrdquoRajeshwar Panchal advocateAdvocate Rajeshwar Panchal said ldquoThe country that claims to be a welfare country and is bound to take care of its citizens The policy underlying the NDMA Act regarding compensation reflects the same Even the Epidemic Diseases Act provides for paying compensation once the measures are taken to contain it Obviously both the Centre and state governments took lockdown measures under these two Acts Hence they are obligated to pay compensation because the lockdowns adversely affected citizensrsquo livelihood There should be no denying about itrdquo Panchal added ldquoEven Covid19 survivors who spent a huge amount of money are entitled to compensation once the pandemic has been declared and the NDMA Act has been applied Even those who may not have been victims of the disease directly but have been prevented from carrying out their livelihood because of the lockdown are entitled to claim compensation under the Epidemic Diseases ActrdquoAdvocate Godfrey Pimenta said ldquoThere are many social security legislations both enacted by central and state governments During natural calamities like earthquake storm flooding draughts etc they have been announcing exgratia payments to the affected victims Under Section 12 of the NDMA Act the persons affected by a disaster pandemic are entitled to medical cover relief camps food drinking water sanitation exgratia payment for loss of lives etcrdquoPimenta added ldquoA compensation of R50 lakh promised to police personnel has not been disbursed yet If the state government is unable to pay compensation it should issue bonds that may be redeemable after 7 to 10 years subject to payment of yearly interest to affected victims to mitigate their sufferingsrdquoSC order on death certificate to help kinDr Santosh Bansode head of the department Emergency Medicine Wockhardt Hospitals Mumbai Central said the SC order to mention lsquodeath due to Covid19rsquo on death certificates will help their kin avail the compensation ldquoDue to the pandemic many patients lost their lives and in most cases we would write lsquoCovid19 pneumoniarsquo on certificates as it was the main cause of many deaths Now the SC has made it very simple for us with its order We can simply write lsquodeath due to Covid19rsquo on certificates for patients who died of the respiratory disease or due to complications linked to it It will also help their relatives avail benefits from various Covid19 schemes of the governmentrdquo This can also apply to Covid19 survivors who die within two to three months of recovery as per the SC order ldquoWith time we are coming across many postCovid19 complications in recovered citizens and sometimes they can be fatalrdquo The Covid19 death toll might also increase because of this he said adding ldquoIf a patient comes in an emergency situation and dies of some disease we will have to check if he had Covid19 in the past three months But we will have to decide if this event was a postCovid19 complication This will be challenging I feel All doctors should be made aware about the possible postrecovery complicationsrdquo