Can’t shift onus of public healthcare on private hospitals, says Bombay HC

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Friday observed that the Maharashtra government cannot shift the burden of ensuring public healthcare on private hospitals, and directed filling up of various vacancies in the state medicare system.

The observations by a bench of Chief Justice D.K. Upadhyaya and Justice Arif Doctor came while a hearing a suo motu public interest litigation taken up in the wake of a series of patient deaths in several government-run hospitals this week, specifically Nanded and Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar.

State Advocate-General Dr. Birendra Saraf said that the load on government hospitals often increased owing to referrals from private or smaller hospitals when extremely critical patients are brought to state-run facilities.

However, public hospitals cannot ask anyone to go away and they try to accommodate everyone, private hospitals don’t adhere to norms for patient referrals, and there is heavy inflow into government hospitals, increasing the burden, he contended.

At this, the court opined that the state government cannot shift its burden to private players.

Dr. Saraf further submitted that all medicines and medical equipment needed by hospitals are made available to patients and given as per protocols, and though there are issues, there was no gross negligence that could have led to the patient deaths.

The court responded by saying that while everything may be "in place on paper", it was important that everything works even at the ground level, as it pertained to the general condition of healthcare in the state.

After going through the preliminary reports of various vacancies, submitted by the state, including junior doctors (52), senior medicos (48), a head for procuring medical supplies, etc, it directed that a regular CEO under the Maharashtra Medical Goods Procurement Authority Act must be made within two weeks.