PIL for Transparency: Delhi HC Says if Prez, PM Need Treatment, Beds Need to Be Reserved in Hospital

The Delhi High Court Friday said beds have to reserved in hospitals for treatment of certain categories of people like the President and Prime Minister of the country. We can understand if there are some beds which are not used, there will be such situation. If the Prime Minister of India or the President needs treatment, you have to keep a bed reserved for him in a hospital. That category has to be there. You can’t say no, a bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Jasmeet Singh said.

Responding to the remarks of the bench, senior advocate Vivek Sood, appearing for the petitioner, said certainly that category has to be there but emphasised he was only talking about commoners where VIP culture is being followed. The court made the reference of reserving beds for certain categories of people while hearing a plea calling for a centralised and transparent system to help COVID-19 patients locate a bed in the hospitals which are following a VIP culture of allocation beds here.

The bench said it has already passed various orders in the COVID-19 related matters including directions to the hospitals to provide data of availability and occupancy of beds and details of patients admitted for over 10 days and reasons. We have taken care of these aspects in our hearings, the bench said.

The court said it understands the petitioner’s concerns which are genuine and kept the petition along with other COVID-19 related matters for May 24. The petition by Delhi resident Manjit Singh, who works in hospitality industry, has said that in the present situation of health emergency, where demand for beds is more than its supply, “there should be some mechanism to ensure that allocation of beds to COVID-19 patients in the hospitals across the city is not arbitrary and unreasonable”.

The high court had earlier issued notice and sought Delhi government’s stand on the petition. The bench said it has been passing orders and looking into it and trying to cap charges of hospitals.

Delhi government counsel Anuj Aggarwal said unfortunately the court orders or even administrative orders cannot change the character of an entity. Regarding the plea to set up help desks at hospitals, the court said they are already there at the receptions.

The petitioner’s counsel submitted that people cannot be jostling outside hospitals for beds and therefore there has to be a system where people in the wait list can be informed when a bed becomes vacant and then according to their turn on the list it can be allocated to someone. To this, the court said this system cannot work because when a patient’s number would come from the waiting list, he might have recovered by then or succumbed to the infection or had got bed in another hospital.

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