Give deadline for hospitals’ audit: Delhi High Court

The Asian Age.

Metros, Delhi

The court's direction came during the hearing of a PIL filed by advocate Ramesh Chander.

Delhi High Court. (Photo: Twitter)

New Delhi: The Delhi high court has directed the principal secretary (health) of the Aam Aadmi Party government to appear before it after the state failed to indicate the timeframe for filing an audit report of all its hospitals.

The court, which had earlier ordered a third party audit of all Delhi government hospitals, including Janakpuri Super Speciality and Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality hospitals, took a serious view that its earlier order has not been complied with.

A bench of Justices S. Ravindra Bhat and A.K. Chawla noted that the court’s September 22 last year order highlighted glaring inadequacies in the healthcare infrastructure vis-a-vis eight public hospitals maintained by the government, which include the two super-speciality hospitals.

“This inadequacy includes gross under utilisation of the bed capacity to the extent of 10-15 per cent of the infrastructure provided, woeful staff strength at any given point of time (both medical and non-medical staff) and other services,” the bench said.

Till date, the audit report hasn’t been submitted and other actions have haven’t been complied with although there was some progress.

It said that Delhi’s counsel was unable to mention the timeline within which the report would be prepared and the action taken.

The court said that in the light of the "government’s inability to indicate the timeframe, the principal secretary (health), Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi is directed to be present in court on February 28."

The court's direction came during the hearing of a PIL filed by advocate Ramesh Chander.

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