Orissa HC adjourns PIL alleging inadequate health services in Govt Hospitals

Cuttack: In light of serious allegations against the state's current affidavit, The Orissa High Court on Monday decided to postpone the hearing of a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) that accuses the state government of inadequacies in providing public healthcare services.  

The petitioner has criticised the government's additional affidavit as "evasive" and "misleading," and claiming that it fails to address concerns about public healthcare services. As a result, the court has given the petitioner two weeks to provide evidence supporting the allegations. 

The court had previously expressed dissatisfaction with a prior affidavit following which the state had filed an additional affidavit before the court recently. 

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According to a TOI news report, the PIL was filed by Chittaranjan Mohanty, a 73-year-old social activist, who alleged that specific individuals/agents are luring people inside government hospitals. Additionally, he claimed that patients are sometimes forced to get admitted to private healthcare facilities.

Taking this into account, a Two-Judge bench of acting Chief Justice B R Sarangi and Justice M S Raman observed “We would like to afford a further opportunity to the state to file an additional affidavit by giving a comprehensive road map for improvement of the hospital services in Odisha and to regulate the activities of the undesirable persons who are engaged to pressurise or influence the poor patients to go to the private hospital for their health care." 

Further, the court directed the state government to provide details about its capacity to enforce a regulation that would prevent individuals involved in these activities from entering.

Despite the state government's submission of an additional affidavit detailing measures taken, the petitioner contends it fails to comply with the court's orders to address patient treatment concerns. 

Filing a rejoinder, the petitioner alleged “It is not only evasive but also misleading. It is not at all according to the orders of the high court nor addresses the issues of proper treatment of patients raised in the petition.”

Accordingly, the additional affidavit filed by the commissioner-cum-secretary of health and family welfare, Shalini Pandit stated that the department had on July 5, 2023, issued an instruction to all collectors and superintendents of police on this issue.

“You are instructed to step up vigilance activities in all government health facilities with specific attention to medical college hospitals, district headquarters hospitals and other high caseload facilities to check the nefarious activities of such undesirable persons (brokers/agents) and take strict action them as an exemplary measure,” it said.

“As regards (a) comprehensive road map for improvement of hospital services in Odisha, the state government has taken several reform measures for strengthening delivery of healthcare services in line with sustainable development goals and striving sincerely to achieve universal health coverage in the state,” Pandit stated.

After the petitioner disagreed with the information provided in the additional affidavit of the state, the court asked the petitioner’s counsel Sunil Kanta Nayak to present his arguments. However, Nayak sought more time from the court.

As a result, the court has granted Nayak, more time during the recent hearing on Monday, scheduling a follow-up session after two weeks. 

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