Hi, I am from Hyderabad, India.
One of my family member was convicted under ACB case in high court and sentenced to 1 year in jail. We appealed in supreme court and applied for bail on medical grounds.
He was in prison for about a month and died of sudden cardiac arrest. He is 66 yrs old and was a very healthy person without any medical issues before he was sent to prison. He does Yoga and walks at least 5 kms each day. He continued doing this even he was inside the prison.
Some of the facts that we learned after this incident
1. There were only 4 doctors for about 2000 or so inmates.
2. There is no medical equipment to treat prisoners with in the prison.
3. For any emergency with in the prison, the authorities send the inmates to the government hospital which is about 1 hour drive.
4. There was a PIL filed in high court by someone concerning large no of deaths few weeks back before this incident. The high court asked the prison to appointment more doctors. Initially there was only one doctor and after PIL there are 4 of them.
For sudden cardiac arrest there should be immediate medical treatment like CPR and use of Defibrillator. If the first aid is done correctly there is 90% chance the patient can be saved.
Our family member collapsed without any symptoms and there was no first aid provided for him. He was sent to the hospital and it took about 1.5 hours to get to the hospital and was declared dead. He would have been saved if immediate medical attention was given to him like CPR and use of Defibrillator.
My family is devastated with the loss and is under lot of pain. I cannot describe in words what my family is going through and feeling very guilty there was nothing we could do.
We are surprised to learn there is no medical care provided with in the prison such as regular doctor visits, BP check up etc etc. There were also large no of deaths of happening within the prison (as per PIL) and there were no additional measures taken by the prison authorities. He was also a Sr Citizen and we learned that he was not put in a Sr Citizen block.
We would like to get justice and responsible punished. Also this should not be repeated for anyone else in future.
What can we do to fight this legally in the court of law? Under what provisions of law can we file a petition? Please advise.
