Table details of COVID care in hospitals: Madras High Court

Chennai

Hearing the plea moved by advocate Jimraj Milton, a division bench comprising Justice Vineet Kothari and Justice R Suresh Kumar also sought details on the mechanism that has been put in place to take action on complaints regarding overcharging by private hospitals. The bench also suo motu impleaded the Centre and directed it to file a report on the guidelines offered to the State in this regard. The bench then posted the plea to June 16 for further hearing.

State government pleader V Jayaprakash Narayan informed the court that a couple of status reports have been filed in this regard and that the government has capped the treatment costs at private hospitals. Every detail was available in public domain, he added. This was countered by the petitioner’s counsel stating that the moment the Disaster Management Act came into force to tackle the pandemic, the government has to bear the cost of treatment even in private hospitals.

The bench took exception to the government pleader’s submission that every detail was available in public domain, and pointed out that there were reports on every day that there were no beds in government hospitals, while private hospitals were reluctant to admit people. Justice Suresh Kumar added that the court should have every possible detail regarding the number of beds available, the numbers of doctors, nurses and paramedical staff who have been pressed into service, the hospitals earmarked for treating COVID-19 patients and how many remain admitted so as to enable the court obtain a clear picture of the prevailing scenario and offer a reasoned order.

The judge also pointed out that another coordinate bench that heard the plea earlier had sought additional status report and posted the case to June 4. To this, the government pleader claimed that the report has been filed. But the bench pointed out that the plea does not seem to have been heard on that date and asked where was the report filed. When the government pleader stated that it was sent by email to the registry, the bench pointed that the report was not available.

The government pleader then sought at least two weeks to file the report with the details that the bench sought. However, the bench pointed out that people were suffering every day and add ed that he could not take his own time to file the report, and posted it to next Tuesday.