The Gujarat high court has ordered the state government to consider paying Rs 25 lakh compensation to the kin of a sanitation worker who died of Covid, after she contracted the virus while working in a Covid ward at Civil Hospital during the first wave of the pandemic.
This case involves Kokila Makwana, who had been working as an outsourced employee at the Covid facility at Civil Hospital since the onset of the pandemic.
On May 31, 2020, she tes]ted positive for Covid and was treated in the Covid ward itself. She died on June 6, 2020. Her family claimed compensation of Rs 25 lakh as announced by the state government in its May 14, 2020 resolution, for frontline corona workers under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package, an insurance scheme for health workers fighting Covid-19.
Their claim was rejected on the grounds that the committee of doctors certifying the cause of death had placed Makwana in the category of “suspected Covid-19 patient” and not in the “confirmed case” category.
The family approached the HC and it was submitted that Makwana had tested positive for Covid and been treated for it. Her last rites also took place according to Covid protocols.
After the hearing, Justice VD Nanavati noted that the insurance claim certificate issued by the district magistrate certifying Makwana’s death also mentioned that her death was due to Covid-19.
The judge further said that the panel did not conclude that she was not suffering from Covid.
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