High court seeks status report on ventilator facility at KGMU, PGI
LUCKNOW: The Lucknow bench of Allahabad high court has directed two premier medical institutes of the city, KGMU and SGPGI, to submit status reports on their ventilator facilities.
The court has also directed the state government to submit similar report on availability of ventilators in district hospitals of the state.
A division bench headed by chief justice Dhananjay Yeshwant Chandrachud and justice Rajan Roy passed the order on April 20 on a petition filed by advocate Prince Lenin, general secretary, We The People, a social organisation which raises issues of public interest.
Lenin filed the petition to raise the problems of poor patients, who have to make rounds of government hospitals for getting critical care, specially ventilators.
Accepting the petition, the court also directed UP principal secretary (medical and health) to submit a status report on availability of ventilators in district hospitals across the state.
“Apart from the two major institutes, KGMU and SGPGI, the issue of availability of ventilators has to be dealt with in relation to the district hospitals in the state. For these reasons, we deem it appropriate and proper to grant sufficient time to the principal secretary (medical and health) to take stock of the situation and assess the requirement, district wise, of each hospital,” said the court.
The court has given two months time to the state government to complete the exercise and table the status report before it.
“We clarify that upon taking stock of the situation the state government shall not await for any further directions of this court but would be at liberty to ensure that equipment as required for administering critical care at the district hospitals is made available expeditiously,” said the court.
During proceedings of the court, the KGMU counsel stated that the medical varsity had 83 ventilators in operation and 12 more ventilators would be procured soon.
The counsel also said that there was a requirement of 35 additional ventilators at KGMU, apart from the 12 ventilators for which orders had been placed, and a request in this regard had been submitted to the principal secretary (medical education) on February 22 last.
“Since a requisition has been submitted by the KGMU, we issue a direction to the effect that the principal secretary (medical education) shall respond to the requisition no later than within a period of two weeks from the receipt of a certified copy of this order so that necessary approvals are obtained from the state government to ensure that critical care equipment is made available for the benefit of patients at KGMU, which is a public hospital,” said the court.
“In a bid to ensure timely compliance of the court’s order in the larger interest of patients, I will personally handover certified copies of the court’s order to the principal secretary on Monday,” said Lenin.
The PGIcounsel informed the court that the institute had 87 ventilators in functional state.
The court also asked the PGI to inform on the next date as to whether the number of ventilators presently available were sufficient for the institute.
The court asked the PGI to inform whether any requisition had been submitted for ventilators, and if so, what was the status of procurement.
The next date of hearing of the case is likely to be in June.