At odds with the Centre and states over the delay to fill up vacant judicial posts, the Supreme Court on Friday threw up its hands in despair when a petitioner sought an order to appoint doctors and nurses in Bihar. The state recently witnessed a spate of deaths due to acute encephalitis syndrome and an affidavit by the state indicated a sorry state of affairs with doctors in state-run hospitals working at less than 50% strength.

"Now you want us to fill vacant posts of doctors. We know how we are trying to fill up posts of judges. In this manner, there is a shortage of many things. Shortage of Ministers in Rajya Sabha, shortage of water, sunlight.... What should we do," responded a bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Deepak Gupta as it refused to entertain a public interest litigation.

The PIL by advocate Manohar Pratap had pointed to a breakdown of medical machinery in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh where kids died of encephalitis for want of proper care and treatment in government hospitals.

Concerned over the deaths, the SC had initially sought the response of the state governments and Centre on the adequacy of medical facilities, the state of nutrition, hygiene and sanitation in medical care institutions.

In response, Bihar government filed affidavit informing that the overall human resources available in the state's health system was not as per standard norms. It pointed out that the state has only 5,205 doctors as against a sanctioned strength of 12,206. As regards nurses, there are only 5,634 although the state hospitals require 19,155 nurses. This leaves the state with a vacancy figure of 57% for doctors and 71% for nurses. To add to this, the state faced a shortage of 72% lab technicians and 58% pharmacists.

The bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Deepak Gupta felt that now that the effect of encephalitis had ceased, there was no purpose to keep the petition pending. However, petitioner Manohar Pratap sought to draw the court's attention to the doctors' vacancy issue, prompting the exasperated judges to stress that they can't take care all administrative issues.

There were 824 encephalitis cases reported in Bihar this year which resulted in 157 deaths. Most deaths were of children aged up to 10 years.