The Delhi High Court on Monday issued notice to the government on a petition seeking direction to cap the price of High Resolution Computerised Tomography (HRCT) which is used for detecting the presence and severity of COVID-19 infection in the lungs of patients.
Lawyer’s plea
A Bench of Chief Justice D.N. Patel and Justice Jasmeet Singh sought response from the Delhi government on the plea by Shivleen Pasricha, a lawyer, who has claimed that for detection of COVID-19 amongst suspected/ probable patients, the most widely recommended test is RT-PCR.
‘Need of the hour’
“At present, the price for getting HRCT done in Delhi is somewhere between ₹5,000 to ₹6,500. As such, regulation of price of the same has become need of the hour... That in light of the present gruesome circumstances in Delhi, regulating the price of HRCT, becomes all imperative and necessary,” the petition said.
The plea stated the cost of HRCT in the Capital is “unregulated and very high” beyond what a common man can afford.
It has further claimed that HRCT has, in the current state of circumstances, become one of the most relevant and vital tests, recommended actively by the doctors for the diagnosis, management and treatment of infection in suspected or probable COVID-19 patients.
“Of late, it has been seen that multiple variants of COVID-19 are not detectable through RT-PCR,” it said.
