NEW DELHI: Highlighting that swiftness in medical intervention is "quite literally like medicine," the Supreme Court of India has ruled that the right to trauma care is an integral part of the right to life enshrined under Article 21 of the Constitution.
A Bench comprising Justices J.K. Maheshwari and A.S. Chandurkar passed the directions on a plea filed by the SaveLife Foundation. The petition emphasized the urgent need for trauma care to be recognized as a fundamental right within the Indian public law system.
The top court noted that when individuals suffer accidents or incidents requiring urgent trauma care, they often experience shock, disorientation, and helplessness, relying entirely on bystanders.
It observed that bystanders frequently hesitate to help a phenomenon described as "reactive paralysis" due to psychological weight or fear of legal proceedings and police harassment.