HC: Don't shift patients from Sirmaur, Solan to Shimla facility

Shimla: The Himachal Pradesh high court on Tuesday directed the state government not to shift Covid-19 patients from Sirmaur and Solan districts to Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Hospital (DDU), Shimla, unless hospitals at these districts run out of capacity. It said priority should be given to treat them at those very places.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice L Narayana Swamy and Justice Anoop Chitkara passed these orders on a petition filed by one Inderjit Singh, challenging the July 16 order of the state government designating DDU as a dedicated Covid care hospital for Solan and Sirmaur also, in addition to Shimla and Kinnaur.

The petitioner alleged that in a meeting held on May 15, overall analysis of equipment and staff was done and it showed shortcomings at the hospital in handling the situation as per the guidelines of Union ministry of health and family welfare.

He said analysis reflected that the ICU itself was short of basic infrastructure. There is gap of 11 anaesthetist, medical specialist, 62 staff nurses and four radiographers. Besides, one remote control monitoring system is needed to be installed to decrease exposure of staff, he said. Also, 12 pulse oxymeters, one defribrillator, electric suction machines (1 for ICU and 4 for covid ward), oxygen manifold, 10 oxygen regulator, one video laryngoscope, 12 syringe infusion pumps, scrub station, portable X-ray and alpha bed mattresses are also required.

The petitioner prayed that in such situation when the DDU was not fully equipped, it would be detrimental to public interest to transfer the patients all the way from Solan and Sirmaur to DD. During the course of hearing on August 7, it was pointed out by the state director health services that there are 24 ventilators and given the infrastructure, one anaesthetist can cater to six ventilators only. However, on Tuesday, it was stated that there were now two anaesthetists.

Court observed that even if two anaesthetists were available, 12 ventilators still did not have anaesthetists. Hence, when the infrastructure at DDU itself was incomplete, it does not lie for the state to order shifting of patients from Sirmaur and Solan, unless those hospitals had run out of infrastructure. Court has posted the matter for August 17 for further hearing.