Shimla, May 8
The State Government is in the docks of the court over the death of a large number of people due to short supply of Oxygen in some of medical institutions, as a public interest litigation was filed in the Himachal Pradesh High court recently.
The Division Bench comprising Justice Tarlok Singh Chauhan and Justice Chander Bhusan passed these orders on a PIL highlighting the issue of lack of oxygen facilities at Dr.Y.S.Parmar, Government Medical College, Nahan and non-functioning of 25 ventilators which had been given to the Medical College under HIM Care Scheme.
The PIL, Ashutosh Gupta versus state moved by the practicing advocate Vandhana Mishra alleged that due to mismanagement of Covid services in the state hospital and short supply and lack of availability of Oxygen supply large numbers of people have died.
Mishra pleaded that ventilator services were sanctioned by the state to Nahan Medical College about nine months ago and an Oxygen manufacturing plant was installed but none of these could be made functional so far.
She alleged that despite court orders in the past Covid designated beds capacity is confined to 25 despite footfall of large numbers of Covid cases on the day to day basis.
The petitioner alleged that on May one , 2021 as many as eight people died in the hospital owing to poor Covid health services. The Court taking suo moto notice over this PIL enlarged the scopeof petition to the entire state level and gave a number of directions to the state Government .
She also said that the Govt has been ordered to follow comprehensive directions strictly and 13 directions is with regard to testing of Covid cases.
The court in strict and lengthy order directed the state on Friday that it should open the door of Covid testing to Pvt players, moreover the state should utilize all RT-PCR test and all mechanism for covid testing and also highlight shortage of testing kits.
Court directed the Govt to start a Mobile van for covid testing on the doorstep of people so that covid affected patients could be helped in time.
The Court directed the state to crack down on hoarding of life saving drugs, oxygen and also provide PPE kits to all covid workers so that they could serve the people without any risk.
The court has asked the Government to publicly announce the Name of Covid testing centers facilities by location and earmarking them with help of database or web portal to avail the public and also upload the GPS location of Covid dedicated facilities.
To ensure the more hospitalisation of covid patients, the Court directed the state to involve Pvt Hospital for hospitalization and offering medical facilities to Covid patients. It has asked to strictly follow the court direction if any pvt institution fails to not comply with state directions action should be taken against such institutions under Disaster Management Act .
The court also directed the state to install and place CT scan machines in all Covid centers or hospitals as it could help to detect the second variant of Covid in the lungs of patients.
The court also put a long query about the availability of ICU beds, number of beds with or without ventilators, number of available oxygen cylinder and detail of availability of oxygen in the hospitaland step taken hoarding and black marketing of drugs and oxygen in the state
The court also pointed out that all Covid related essential drugs should be provided in the state hospital and directed the state to explain the reason of availability of only 3000 Remdesivir vials directing to ensure the quota of state.
Court also ordered the state to upload the information of available ICU, ventilators beds or non ventilators beds with their occupancy and vacancy in the public domains and web portal on the regular basis.
Court also asked the state to file the status report about preparation of 3rd wave on head explaining govt preparation plan and progress of vaccination of people in the state above the age group of 18 yrs fixing the matter on May 10 .
