Get lung machines in all districts, says SC

The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Centre to consider the possibility of arranging a lung support machine called ECMO in every district as it came across a petition filed by a woman seeking financial assistance for her husband whose lungs were completely damaged due to Covid-19 in May.

Sheela Mehra,31, from Madhya Pradesh approached the top court in July with the request for ₹1 crore assistance from the PM Cares Fund, PM Relief Fund or Chief Minister Relief Fund to save her ailing husband, Manish Kumar Gohiya . Since July 7, he has been on ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) support at Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS), Secunderabad, which requires a daily expense of close to ₹1.5 lakh.

The man was earlier admitted to AIIMS, Bhopal, on May 14. From there, he was flown to Hyderabad on June 2 before

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being shifted to KIMS hospital that had the ECMO facility.

The woman has already spent close to ₹1 crore on his medical expenses and had outstanding dues of ₹10 lakh towards the hospital, the petition said.

Last week, a bench of justices L Nageswara Rao and Aniruddha Bose issued a notice to the Centre on humanitarian grounds while making it clear that the petitioner had no legal right to claim monetary aid.

On Wednesday, solicitor general Tushar Mehta appeared for the Centre and informed the court that the petitioner had been allocated ₹3 lakh from the PM Cares Fund, and altogether ₹5 lakh was approved for payment to the hospital from central funds. “How is it going to help? She is already incurring close to ₹1.5 lakh per day for the ECMO machine. Why can’t the Centre consider having ECMO machines at the district level?” the bench said.

“I will personally take it up with the health minister,” Mehta said.