HC to govt: When will super specialty hospital at Dwarka be ready? – ET HealthWorld

“You are shirking your responsibility to develop a super specialty hospital. Your endeavour to develop it should be imminent and now. People of Delhi need medical support, it is not enough, the infrastructure is not adequate,” a bench of justices Vipin Sanghi and Jasmeet Singh observed.

The court’s remark came when the AAP government failed to clearly indicate timelines by when the hospital would be up and running. Instead, the government claimed, since the hospital was a Covid 19 dedicated facility, it was focused on ensuring there were enough beds with oxygen, ventilators, and other support staff.

The government submitted an affidavit arguing that, “The hospital has been designated as a Covid one, the specialised facilities have not been planned to be started as of now, and when the institution will be declared a non-Covid facility, necessary arrangements will be considered to start the super specialty facility.”

“Why is it only a Covid hospital? A corona patient also needs these specialities as there can be complications due to the disease, these are essential. It is not rocket science that you want to first run the Covid facility and see what can be learnt from it. A Covid facility doesn’t mean just oxygen and beds, it also means other specialities, and specialists are needed for treating patients, be it a pulmonologist, heart specialist or a nephrologist,” the bench pointed out.

The court made it clear that mere declaration of 1,241-bed Indira Gandhi Hospital as a Covid-19 dedicated facility should not postpone the development of specialised facilities as they would also be necessary for treatment of other ailments of patients during their stay.

“We direct the government to file a better affidavit indicating the timeline within which the super specialities will be set up, since, in our view, this will not be at cross purposes with dedication of the hospital as an exclusive Covid facility,” the bench noted.

It underlined that, “We are still apprehensive of the third wave. We do not know when it will come, how it will be, will it require hospitalisation. All we are telling you is that your decision not to develop super specialties now is incorrect.”

“We definitely want to know the outer timeline and do not want to keep it open ended, else we know it will never be completed” the bench said and listed the matter for hearing on August 2.

Advocate Y P Singh, representing petitioner Dwarka Court Bar Association, said, despite clear direction of the court, the government had not come with clean hands and was misleading the court.