Fresh guidelines for issuance of Covid death document

The Centre has told the Supreme Court that the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had on September 3 jointly issued guidelines for the issuance of an 'official document' for COVID-19 related deaths. In an affidavit filed in the top court, the Centre said, "The office of the Registrar General of India has also issued a circular on September 3 to provide a medical certificate of cause of death to the next of kin of the deceased." To be designated a Covid case, the patient must either have been tested or clinically determined as such via investigations by a treating physician at a hospital on in-patient facility.

As per these guidelines, deaths that occur within 30 days of testing positive for Covid-19 are to be treated as 'deaths due to Covid-19' even if the patient dies outside a hospital or in-patient facility. Additionally, a Covid-19 patient who is admitted to a hospital or in-patient facility for more than 30 days and subsequently dies there will also be treated as a Covid-19 death, according to the guidelines. "Covid-19 cases which are not resolved and have died either in hospital settings or at home, and where a Medical Certificate of Cause of Death (MCCD) in Form 4 & 4 A has been issued to the registering authority as required under Section 10 of the Registration of Birth and Death (RBD) Act, 1969, will be treated as a Covid-19 death," the guidelines say.

The guidelines added that as per the study by ICMR, 95 per cent of deaths take place within 25 days of testing positive for COVID. The Centre said the applications for issuance of official document for COVID-19 death and for redressal of grievances shall be disposed of within 30 days of submission of the application/grievance.The top court in its June 30 judgment had ordered steps to simplify the guidelines for the issuance and correction of death certificates/official documents related to COVID-19 deaths. The judgment came on two separate pleas filed by lawyers Reepak Kansal and Gaurav Kumar Bansal seeking directions to the Centre and states to provide Rs 4 lakh compensation to the families of those who succumbed to COVID.