List steps to deal with serious COVID-19 patients, says Delhi HC

Taking suo moto cognisance of a video clip in which a man had alleged that his mother, who was suffering from Covid-19, was asked to shift hospitals, the Delhi high court on Tuesday directed the Centre and the Delhi government to state the arrangements made to deal with serious patients who require immediate hospitalisation.

The court sought the status of functional and responsive helpline numbers being operated by them, as many of them were said to be found non-functional.

A bench of justices Vipin Sanghi and Rajnish Bhatnagar said the authorities “should assess the adequacy of the helpline capacity and state whether the same is sufficient to deal with the present call traffic and the traffic expected in the future”.

The Delhi government’s standing counsel (criminal), advocate Rahul Mehra provided 10 helpline numbers, including the interactive 1031. He said the helpline numbers were found not to be functioning efficiently and instructions had been issued to set the system in order in the next couple of days.

Appearing for the Centre, standing counsel Kirtiman Singh told the court that number 1075 is an all-India helpline number and about 3 lakh calls have been received on it so far.

The order comes after the court took note of a video by one Deepak Bhardwaj, who had said the deputy medical superintendent of Max Hospital, Patparganj, asked him to arrange a ventilator and bed in another hospital. His mother, Shyama Sharma, was admitted to Max Hospital, Patparganj, on May 19 and tested positive for Covid-19 on May 21.

“The patient continues to be under treatment at Max Hospital, Patparganj, and the family is convinced with her course or treatment at the hospital. Since the matter is sub-judice, we would not like to comment any further,” said Max Healthcare in a statement. – Hindustan Times