HC slams Telangana state on DC's TIMS expose

HYDERABAD: The Telangana High Court on Tuesday pulled up the state government over the deplorable conditions at the Telangana Institute of Medical Sciences at Gachibowli.

While hearing complaints about harassment of Coronavirus patients and their attendants by hospital staff, ambulance drivers and crematorium workers, the High Court advised the state government to look into such complaints and resolve them.

Referring to a report in Deccan Chronicle on Tuesday, which highlighted the deplorable conditions of Covid19 patients and their family members at TIMS, Chief Justice Hima Kohli said these were issues to be looked into and handled by the government.

“A covid-19 patient was asked to shell out Rs15,000 to shift him from Narepally to TIMS hospital in Gachbowli, which was a 20-minute drive. This is very unfortunate,” the CJ said.

 The court took note of the report about exploitation of the Covid situation by lower–level management at TIMS in relation to patient service, cleaning of rooms and even for passing on home-cooked food to patients.

AMBULANCE SERVICES

A division bench of Chief Justice Hima Kohli and Justice B. Vijaysen Reddy also observed that those who are taking advantage of the present critical situation are nothing but “vultures preying on the people’s flesh”.

The court advised the government to arrange hearse vehicles to shift the bodies and make available body bags for this purpose at the hospitals. Stressing that the “dignity in death” should also be maintained, the court said it was seeing reports bodies of the dead at hospitals and crematoria were left around or handled without proper care.

It also went into reports of vested interests or rackets charging higher prices for oxygen supply, the seeking of bribe by government ambulance drivers and swindling of money by private ambulances to shift the patients or bodies of the dead from one place to another. There were also reports about the charges being levied at cremation grounds.

To all these, the bench observed that this was “nauseating” and directed the government to take adequate steps to rectify the situation.

Advocate Jeevan Kumar apprised his own experience before the court, saying how a demand was made at Gandhi Hospital for Rs 20,000 to hand over the body of his deceased friend. He also explained how there was swindling of money by the ambulance driver to shift the body to the cremation ground and the higher amounts that had to be paid for the cremation.

  RUSH AT CREMATORIA

The bench expressed concern over the rush at crematorium grounds and sought a report on the need for expanding the space of these grounds, the details of burial grounds in the state and how many electrical burning grounds are present in the state.

The court put on record that the state government is still trying to fudge the numbers of Covid deaths. Observed the CJ: “As long as the state furnished such (unrealistically low) figures, the general public will not be bothered about deaths due to Covid19. This will be more damaging and will harm the general public. Correct information will prompt the general public to get vaccination done on them fast so as to be safe.”

The CJ advised advocate general BS Prasad to ensure that a proper record is maintained of the numbers of the dead brought in at various crematoria and burial grounds across the state, so that the figure furnished by the state can be matched with these numbers.   

WHAT NEXT?

“What is the next step,” the court asked the state government in light of the letter addressed by the Union home ministry, which asked states to impose area-specific restrictions and implement strict containment measures to flatten the sharp Covid-19 curve.

CJ Kohli asked the advocate general, “In these circumstances, in which way is the Telangana State going? There is rampant rise in cases. But still you are sticking to your guns (figures). Even after the Centre advised states to allow only 50 members for marriage events and 20 for funerals, you have not issued a notification. After April 30, what restrictions are you planning? The night curfew is only until that day.” AG replied that he will get instructions from the government.

Rt-PCR TEST REPORT

The court also expressed its dissatisfaction over the government not issuing a circular to hospitals, asking them not to insist on RT-PCR test report to admit patients. “We have been asking the state to take necessary steps, but the state is not listening. This is the last time the court is asking you to issue the circular. Next time, if this does not happen, the court will react.”

The court criticised the affidavit and reports filed by the Director of Health and DGP, which did not answer most of the questions raised by it and  to the 20 details  sought by the court  in its 17-page order  issued on April 23.

POLICE PULLED UP

Justice Hima Kohli wondered how, even after this, the police had registered only four across the state against those who did not maintain the Covid protocol of Social Distance at public places; and only two cases were booked  for unlawful holding of public meetings.

The CJ said this was a joke. “These figures are laughable and reflect how the police is not interested in enforcing law. You could register four cases in one area, as can still see more violations. But, the police are not able to see such violations,” the bench said.

The court advised the police to impose fine on violators who not properly wear masks. “Wearing of masks at head or chin is not what is advised in the Covid protocol. The mask should cover the mouth and nose. Else, impose the fine,” the court asked the police.

NOTICE TO SEC

The Telangana high court issued notices to the State Election Commission, asking it to furnish the action plan as also the arrangements for managing crowds during the upcoming municipal elections scheduled for April 30. The report must be furnished by the SEC on April 28.

The following directions were issued by the court to the state government:

--Reactivate the HITAM app, introduced in August 2020, to give medical guidance to Covid patients via phone. Needful shall be done within one week from today.

--Each district is directed to issue a Daily Bulletin relating to the number of tests, positivity rate, the number of deaths as was done earlier and upload them on its web portal.

--Appoint a nodal officer who will be taking stock of the Oxygen Supply to private and government hospitals in the state as regards the requirement of the state, the requisition sent to the central government, the allocation by the central government etc.

--Designate more numbers of private and government hospitals as Covid19 centres, as there is a huge spike in the pandemic cases across the state.

--Create another toll free number for "Hearse vehicles" so that Covid 19 patients can be transported from home to hospital and hospital to home as there is a huge spike in Covid 19 cases.

--Make available sufficient number of body bags at various government and private hospitals so that the body of a Covid19 patient is wrapped in the body bag and is given the dignity it deserved -- " dignity in death". This direction is issued after the print and visual media reported about the huge number of bodies being piled up at various crematoria and burial grounds and kept in the open.

OXYGEN SUPPLY

As  per the directions of the court, officials  from the central health and other departments appeared before it via virtual mode and stated that 430 metric tonnes of oxygen supply has been cleared for Telangana State  since April 24.

Apart from this, the central government has supplied 91,135 vials of Ramedisivir life-saving drug to the state government -- which is 10.75 per cent of the total allocations across the country.

Advocate general informed the court that the state has requested for a supply of 600 MT of oxygen by the end of this month in the light of a sharp increase in infections. The court adjourned the PILs related to Covid to  May 5.