MEDICAL SYSTEM IN SMALLER CITIES, VILLAGES IS RAM BHAROSE: HC
PRAYAGRAJ: The Allahabad high court on Monday observed that the medical system of the state pertaining to smaller cities and villages was like the Hindi saying “Ram bharose” (at God’s mercy).
The court made the observation while taking serious note of a patient having gone missing from the Meerut district hospital and later his body having been handled as an unidentified one.
“If this is the state of affairs of treatment at medical college in the city like Meerut then the entire medical system of the State pertaining to the smaller cities and villages can only be taken to be like a famous Hindi saying Ram bharose,” the court said.
PRAYAGRAJ: The Allahabad high court on Monday observed that the medical system of the state pertaining to smaller cities and villages was like the Hindi saying “Ram bharose” (at God’s mercy).
The court made the observation while taking serious note of a patient having gone missing from the Meerut district hospital and later his body having been handled as an unidentified one.
“If this is the state of affairs of treatment at medical college in a city like Meerut then the entire medical system of the State pertaining to the smaller cities and villages can only be taken to be like a famous Hindi saying Ram bharose,” the court said.
The court also said it was a case of “high degree carelessness”.
“A patient is admitted to the hospital in an absolute care of doctors and paramedical staff and if the doctors and paramedical staff adopt such casual approach and show carelessness in the performance of their duty, then it is a case of serious misconduct because it is something like playing with the lives of innocent people,” the court observed. The bench comprising justice Siddhartha Varma and justice Ajit Kumar was hearing a suo motu public interest litigation (PIL) on “conditions of quarantine centres and for providing better treatment to corona positives” in Uttar Pradesh.
The court directed the additional chief secretary (medical and health), Uttar Pradesh, to file an affidavit fixing responsibility in the matter.
At the previous hearing, the court had directed the state government counsel to apprise it how it was managing Covid hospitals, requirement of oxygen, beds and life-saving drugs and equipment in districts of Bahraich, Barabanki, Bijnor, Jaunpur and Shravasti.
The bench took the example of Bijnor district as a test case to assess the overall health care system in smaller cities and rural areas of the state. After going through Covid testing data related to Bijnor, the bench expressed its dissatisfaction over the number of tests conducted in Bijnor between March 31, 2021 and May 12 , 2021.
The bench said that in a population of 32 lakh, if testing is done of only 1200 persons per day, then the situation is not happy. The bench directed the state government to immediately
improve and increase the testing methods of the rural population and in small cities and towns and also provide sufficient health care infrastructure.
The bench also said that we are under “serious threat of its third wave, hence, we need to
vaccinate each and every individual in the country...”
“One cannot understand as to why the government of ours, which is a welfare state is not trying to manufacture the vaccine itself on a large scale,” it said.