97 approved posts at Nanded Medical College, only 47 Professors posts: HC pulls up government

Mumbai: Taking cognizance of the recent deaths of patients in the Dr Shankarrao Chavan Medical College and Hospital at Maharashtra's Nanded district, the Bombay High Court on Friday questioned the state government over less postings of Professors in the medical college.

"There are 97 approved posts of Professors in the medical college but only 49 are posted there at present, what would you say on that?" the court asked.

To this Attorney General Advocate Birendra Saraf, representing the Maharashtra government said that the state health services department is positive about the vacancies and those will be filled by November this year.

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The high court also questioned the unavailability of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Medicine Procurement Board at the hospital to which the Attorney General said that a person is already having an additional charge of the board.

In response to this, the court slammed the government saying that there must be a full-time and independent CEO of the medicine procurement board.

The court said that the problem of hospital staff both medic and parmedic must be addressed properly by government. It said that issues of procurement of medicines and other medical equipment is also important.

Government hospitals of all levels are administered by the public health department and medical colleges are administered by the Medical Education Department, the court said.

The primary mandate of a Medical College is teaching and secondary is to take care of the patients, it said adding that the public health department has the primary responsibility of taking care of patients.

"In our opinion apart from all other measures, these 2 departments should take care that all the vacancies medical and non-medic are filled," the court said.

The Attorney General informed that recruitment process in medical colleges has been conducted by Maharashtra Public Service Commission and in other hospitals, doctors are being apponted by other recruitment process by the Public health department.

Meanwhile Advocate Mohit Khanna, amicus curiae in the case, pointed out that this is not the only instance where Haffkine Biopharmaceutical Corporation Limited, in charge of purchases for government hospitals had not supplied the desired medicines.

Advocate Khanna said that in an earlier order of the High Court's Nagpur bench, Haffkine was made a party of the case. Unavailability of full-fledged medicine procurement board and a full time CEO is making things worse, he added.

Earlier while arguing before the court, Advocate Saraf said that most of the patients were brought to the government hospital at last stage. Moreover, lack of adequate staff had led to a lot of pressure on the hospital personnel.

The Advocate said that no one in particular can he blamed for those deaths in the hospitals. He further apprised that court that Chief Minister Eknath Shinde is himself keeping an eye on the situation and district level rights are being given to local authorities to make necessary arrangements.

At least 31 people died in the government-run Dr Shankarrao Chavan Medical College and Hospital Nanded, reportedly due to an alleged scarcity of medicines.

Between Saturday and Sunday, a total of 24 patients, including new-borns, were reported dead with seven more deaths reported on Tuesday.

The incident has prompted the Maharashtra government to form a state-level committee to investigate the death cases. CM Shinde has assured that strict action will be taken against those responsible for the deaths.