Delhi: Kejriwal asks Health Minister Satyendar Jain to ensure life support systems in govt hospitals

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has directed the Health Minister Satyendar Jain to submit a concrete action plan within a week to ensure that critical patients requiring life support do not have to run around hospitals in times of crises.

Kejriwal also has asked the health minister to include in the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) that the hospital where a critical patient is first brought for admission, will ensure that the patient gets immediate life saving care.

He further directed that from now on, if for some justified reason, like any hospital lacking life saving facilities or non availability of beds when a patient in a critical condition is brought for admission, then it will be the mandatory emergency duty of that hospital to find out in which other hospital such a facility is available.

Kejriwal directed Jain after taking cognizance of a newspaper report which highlighted that the life of a newborn child could not be saved since four government hospitals refused to admit the him citing lack of critical care beds with ventilator facilities.

He has made it clear that loss of lives due lack of facilities in the hospitals of Delhi is unacceptable since the government is committed to provide best health care for the residents of the national capital, and it has allocated nearly Rs 6,000 crore in the current financial year for the health sector.