The Delhi High Court on Thursday asked the city government to respond to a plea alleging “unfortunate state of affairs” at Lok Nayak Hospital here. Justice Rekha Palli asked the Delhi government to “take steps to improve the working of the hospital”, while hearing the petition filed by Ashish Pandey, who was recently admitted to the hospital.
“This is not the first time that we are hearing it... Some of this [allegations] must be true,” Justice Palli said, adding that “we are not out of COVID-19 crisis”. The court posted the case for further hearing on December 20.
The plea alleged that no COVID-19 test was conducted on Mr. Pandey at the time of admission. It said there were two-three patients on each bed and up to three patients were taken to the ultrasound lab at a time.
It also alleged that “each ward, having around 72 beds, had only two PG second-year doctors and one senior resident”, reflecting the shortage of doctors as for more than 250 patients (due to double/ triple occupancy on each bed), there were only two postgraduate students and a senior resident doctor.
It sought a direction to form a high-powered panel to look into the lapses at the hospital and take action at the earliest. The petition accused the hospital authorities of having a “callous and unbothered attitude”.
