Delhi’s high court on Thursday overturned the suspension imposed by a single judge on the reservation of 80% of beds in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in 33 private hospitals in the national capital.
“In view of the current situation and the spiraling situation that has radically changed in the last three months, the order of September 22, approved by the sole judge, is void,” the court said.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government issued an order on September 12 asking 33 private hospitals in the city to reserve 80% of ICU beds for Covid-19 patients. This order was suspended by the HC on September 22 at the request of the Association of Health Providers. Later, on October 9, a court division court accepted an appeal from the Delhi government, refusing to overturn the suspension while postponing the matter to November 27. The AAP government approached the high court against these two orders on September 22 and October 9. The Supreme Court has refused to interfere with HC’s order to suspend the AAP government’s instruction to private hospitals in the city of reserving beds.
The high court also asked the state government what exercise it has carried out in reserving 80% of ICU beds in 33 private hospitals, while affirming that a notification of September 12 in this regard is “out of date” and that “the situation on the ground it is much more critical ”.
Also read: Explain the reason behind reserving 80% of ICU beds for Covid-19: HC patients to the Delhi government
“What is the rationale for selecting these 33 hospitals? What is the density exercise you have done? Is it a random selection? What is the density of exposure and how many of the hospitals have been booked in the central district of the city with the report of the fourth sero survey showing an increase in cases? How have the beds been divided? ”, A bench of Judge Hima Kohli and Judge Subramonium Prasad sought to hear from Additional Attorney General (ASG) Sanjay Jain, who represented the Delhi government.
ASG Jain stated that three factors had been taken into account when choosing the 33 hospitals. He said they had the most ICU beds (a total of 2,217). He said the city’s remaining 82 private hospitals had 1,051 ICU beds, and they had also been told to reserve between 20% and 40% of their ICU beds for Covid-19 patients.
Jain argued that the 33 hospitals were also chosen because they were popular with residents and better equipped to segregate Covid and non-Covid patients, as well as to increase the number of ICU beds if necessary.
He said that while there are 20 ambulances available to transport patients to the Radha Soami Beas Satsang facility, the Delhi government is offering 60 more ambulances to transport patients from their homes to hospitals and from one hospital to another.
However, appearing for the Health Providers Association, lead advocate Maninder Singh and advocate Sanyam Khetarpal said the33 private hospitals had already reserved 67% of their ICU beds for Covid patients. Singh said that between 50% and 55% of ICU beds were needed for non-Covid patients, including new ones and those already in treatment at these private hospitals.
After hearing the presentations, the court said that no citizen with a health emergency should run from one pillar to another if a bed is available in a hospital. He said the Delhi government must take the city’s pulse to deal with the situation, as there has been a radical change in the reality on the ground since the September 12 order was passed.
On Wednesday, the government informed the high court that around one in four of the 15,000 people tested in the latest serological survey in the capital showed a prevalence of antibodies to Sars-Cov-2, indicating that the proportion of people with antibodies it has remained virtually unchanged. from the previous round of the exercise.
The court also asked the Delhi government if there are nodal officials appointed to coordinate with the administration of these private hospitals to verify the availability of beds.
ASG Jain stated that there are 33 nodal officers assigned to each hospital and there is one nodal officer per district. All of them collectively report to the Delhi government’s special health secretary to investigate the availability of beds.
The court then overturned the suspension imposed by a single judge on the ICU bed reservation on September 22, while stating that since the network of nodal officers is already installed, they can coordinate and modify the order depending on the situation. .
The court asked the Delhi government to submit an additional affidavit before the sole judge and changed the date of the next hearing to November 26 from November 18.
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