Lack of Medical Infrastructure: Delhi HC seeks status of funds allocation for Govt hospitals

New Delhi: Expressing concern over the lack of medical infrastructure in the state-run government hospitals for critical care patients, the Delhi High Court on Monday questioned the Delhi government about the allocation of funds meant for hospitals and the reasons behind the lack of development in infrastructure to meet the growing demand. 

The high court asked the Delhi government to file a status report detailing the amount spent on strengthening the health sector in the last five years. This comes in response to an incident on the night of January 2-3, where a man who jumped out of a moving Police Control Room (PCR) van died after being denied treatment by four government hospitals.

The bench, consisting of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Manmeet PS Arora, was informed that the man was denied treatment by three Delhi government and one central government hospital, citing reasons such as non-availability of ICU/ventilator beds or CT scan facilities while it was hearing a PIL it had initiated on its own in 2017 about non-availability of ICU beds and ventilators in government hospitals here.

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Advocate Ashok Aggarwal, who was asked to assist the court as amicus curiae in the matter said that the patient was taken to the Delhi government-run Jag Pravesh Chandra Hospital, Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital, Lok Nayak Hospital and Centre’s Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital.

The bench questioned the Delhi government counsel as to why accident victims were not getting admission to hospitals and how it could be that no ventilator beds were available in all these hospitals.

“Where are things going wrong? Is proper infrastructure not there? Why are beds not available, what has happened in recent years? Just imagine, in four hospitals a person does not get admission,” Justice Manmohan said, adding the issue was that “infrastructure was not keeping pace with the demand of the growing population of the city”.

The court remarked that earlier the situation in the city was not like this and, in an accident case, admission was immediately granted in the nearest hospital.

The counsel for the central government said augmenting medical facilities was required, and sought time to get details from the authorities on the issue.

“You create a portal but facilities are not available. If a patient is not given a bed in four hospitals, there is a shortage of beds overall. You ensure that at least in all districts beds are available at some place for accident victims. Accidents can happen anywhere and at any time,” the bench said.

The court also asked whether funds meant for hospitals were being diverted to some other projects and directed the Delhi government to find out and give details at the next hearing, PTI reports.

“At times, the budget sanctioned for healthcare augmentation gets diverted for other projects. Budget, normally, percentage-wise might not have come done but has it been diverted to somewhere else? At times funds get diverted. What happens is that hospitals are not getting augmented and some other project of yours is getting augmented. It should not happen like this. The problem today is critical care patients are not getting attention. You will have to increase the budget,” it said.

The court asked the Delhi government to explore the feasibility of setting up a central portal that would indicate on a real-time basis the number of beds available in Delhi hospitals.

In December 2023, the Delhi High Court during the hearing of a suo motu public interest litigation, expressed its concerns regarding the healthcare facilities in various government hospitals in the capital. The court noted that the medical infrastructure in the national capital is inadequate and there is a shortage of hospital beds. Following this, it directed the Delhi government to provide a status report outlining their plan for ensuring a sufficient medical infrastructure to cater to the city's increasing population as reported by the Medical Dialogues team. 

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