In a ruling that can trigger a fresh thinking on treatment for terminally-ill patients in India, the Kerala State Human Rights Commission has asked the state government to make pain and palliative care a compulsory part of medical practice and education.

The order, by SHRC chairperson Justice V P Mohan Kumar, comes on two separate petitions filed on behalf of Kozhikode-based NGOs working in the field of pain and palliative care. The petitioners—Dr Suresh Kumar, Director of the Institute of Palliative Medicine at the Calicut Medical College and the Pain and Palliative Care Society, Kozhikode—had raised question marks on the treatment of terminally ill patients in India, who often languish in the hospitals with excruciating pain, depression and anxiety at the fag end of their life.

After hearing arguments by the Kerala government, the commission ruled that “relief from pain was part of the peaceful living that was guaranteed to every Indian under the ambit of Article 21 of the Indian Constitution” and hence the state has a responsibility towards ensuring this. “It is a fundamental duty of the government to extent such treatment to a patient and which then crystalises as part of a right to peaceful living of a human bring, be he a citizen or otherwise,” the order said.

Based on this, the commission has given directions to the state to approach the Medical Council of India and Nursing Council of India with its demand that palliative care should be made part of medical education. The state has been given three months to show results.

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