‘ Evaluate quality of healthcare of at AIIMS, Safdarjung, LNJP’

Pained by the incidents of medical staff, including doctors, being assaulted by patients and their attendants, the Delhi high court on Tuesday said such acts cannot be countenanced and asked a private body to evaluate health care quality in AIIMS, Safdarjung Hospital and LNJP Hospital as the Centre was “not placing” the correct picture before it.

A bench of acting chief justice Gita Mittal and justice C. Hari Shankar said that even though the central government has claimed there are enough doctors, “it cannot be denied that insufficiency of medical staff is one of the major causes of discontent among patients and their attendants”.

It observed that patients needed attendants as the nurses were not doing their jobs and said if CCTV cameras are installed, the correct position would be evident. The court said that since the Centre was not placing the correct position before it, it was imperative to have an independent audit of the facilities along with recommendations of an ideal health care situation. It asked the National Accreditation Board for Hospitals ( NABH), a body under the Quality Council of India ( QCI), to conduct a detailed evaluation of the three hospitals — All India Institute of Medical Sciences ( AIIMS), Safdarjung Hospital and Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan ( LNJP) Hospital, within two weeks and to inform the court about the available infrastructure and manpower, their inadequacy and steps necessary for improvement of health services.

The bench asked NABH to inform it about the doctor- patient ratio, adequacy of facilities for doctors and measures in place for their safety and security.

The court said it was open to NABH to decide which all specialities it will evaluate and directed the Centre and the Delhi government to pay the organisation 2 lakh per hospital.