HC seeks AIIMS reply on cancer patient's free treatment plea

The Delhi High Court today sought response of AIIMS on a plea seeking free and continuous treatment to a blood cancer patient.
A vacation bench of Justice V P Vaish issued notice to All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) on the plea filed by the brother of the patient, saying they cannot afford the treatment.
The court has now fixed the matter for June 10.
The plea said that 30-year-old Satish has been undergoing chemotherapy at AIIMS and his family has already spent around Rs 3 lakh on his treatment.
His brother Anand Kumar Morya, in his plea filed through advocate Ashok Aggarwal said that Satish, a resident of Mathura in Uttar Pradesh who used to run his own shop, was diagnosed with Burkitt's Leukemia, a form of blood cancer, in March, barely three months after his marriage.

Due to his condition, the shop had to be closed down and machines sold off to bear the cost of treatment, it said.

The plea further stated that Satish's father, a class-IV railway employee with a monthly salary of Rs 12,000 was now the sole earning member in a family of six.
Aggarwal contended that the patient's father has exhausted all his savings on the treatment, and even his Provident Fund account is left with a meagre balance of Rs 24,550.
"They have been given an additional expenditure estimate of Rs six lakh recently, which they are unable to bear. The petitioner, thus, seeks continuation of treatment at AIIMS free of cost in order to save Satish's life," the plea said.

It further stated that the family was not in a position to bear the expenditure and, under such circumstances, Satish's chemotherapy was likely to get interrupted and discontinuation of treatment would lead to an anomalous situation by reversing gains of treatment already given and ultimately endangering the patient's life.