The Allahabad High Court has summoned the principal secretary of the Uttar Pradesh Medical Health & Family Welfare department to appear before it on August 6. The court’s order comes after it deemed the state’s response to a query on ventilator availability in government hospitals as inadequate.
A Lucknow bench of Justice Rajan Roy and Justice Manjive Shukla passed the order on July 16 while hearing a public interest litigation filed by a non-governmental organisation (NGO). The court expressed dissatisfaction with the state’s response, terming it ‘evasive’ and lacking in material particulars.
The court had sought details on the actual demand for ventilators in government hospitals, the number of patients who could not be provided ventilator support in time, and the mechanism in place to address such situations in its April 22 order. However, despite nearly three months having elapsed, the state government failed to furnish any concrete information.
The bench observed that the affidavit filed by the state merely stated that data collection from various hospitals was still in progress. The court also noted that the state had not provided clear details regarding budgetary allocations for healthcare facilities, the condition of medical colleges established in recent years, or the extent to which they were meeting the healthcare needs of local residents.
The court has directed the Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGI) in Lucknow and other major hospitals to assess ventilator demand and availability based on data from the past two years. They have also been asked to indicate the additional number of ventilators required to meet actual demand.
In its earlier order, the court had observed that expenditure on healthcare should be the state’s highest priority as it is directly linked to citizens’ right to life. The court had also sought responses from the Centre and the state government on issues relating to regulation of private hospitals, decentralisation of super-speciality healthcare facilities, and the availability of specialist doctors.
