Delhi HC directs DUSIB to ensure accommodation of patients living in night shelters outside AIIMS

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has ordered the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board to ensure, coordinate and facilitate the required accommodation for patients who are currently living in night shelters outside the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) here, adding that provisions should also be made for the attendants of these patients.

A lot of the patients who had come to the Capital from other states to get treated at

AIIMS found themselves stuck when the COVID-19 lockdown kicked in and were found living in subways. Eventually many were moved into night shelters outside the hospital but the conditions in these shelters showed no social distancing norms being followed and semi-solid and liquid food being provided to them.

A bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rajnish Bhatnagar directed authorities to house these patients and noted that some of them might require daily or regular treatment at

AIIMS, while others may not.

While AIIMS submitted in court that it could accommodate up to 5- 60 of these patients in its Vishram Sadan, Delhi Government submitted that around 59 of the patients who were in these shelter homes had already left for their native places and that 93 other had expressed their desire to do the same.

The hospital also informed that court that it intends to start OPD services in phased manner in two weeks’ time and that adequate treatment is being provided through the Emergency department. It added that chemotherapy treatment of Cancer patients is being provided uninterrupted.

In addition, the Delhi government also told the court that as per directions of the concerned SDM, it had already issued bus passes for patients that needed to be taken to AIIMS for immediate treatment and that a school in Green Park had also been prepared with appropriate social distancing norms to shift other patients.