RAJKOT: End “medical terrorism” and ensure that the licence to practice medicine does not become a licence to kill and extort. This was the stinging message that the Central Information Commission ( CIC ) delivered to lawmakers while disposing the application of a New Delhi-based advocate, Prabhat Kumar, who wanted to know the real cause of his 73-year-old father’s death in a private hospital.

In a landmark order, the CIC has recommended to the Centre, states and Union territories to bring private hospitals under the RTI ambit, which it says will force them to provide medical records of patients to their kin on a day-to-day basis. The CIC observed that this will also prevent the undesirable practice of altering records after damage has been caused to the patient.

“Forcing private hospitals to provide daily medical records will also act as a check on some hospitals from resorting to extortionist, inhuman and ruthless business of prescribing unnecessary diagnostic tests, unnecessary surgical operations, caesarean deliveries, unwarranted angioplasties, inserting stents without need, or of substandard nature or putting low-quality stent while collecting price of high-quality stent and several such malpractices amounting to medical terrorism,’’ observed M Sridhar Acharyulu, information commissioner, CIC.