The Delhi High Court on Thursday allowed the city government to reserve 80% ICU beds for COVID-19 patients in 33 private hospitals in view of the situation in the Capital where “cases are spiralling daily”.
A Bench of Justice Hima Kohli and Justice Subramonium Prasad vacated a single judge’s interim order staying the AAP government decision.
The High Court took note of the submission made by Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain that the data collated by the Delhi government show that the occupancy strength of even 20% ICU beds segregated for non-COVID-19 patients is only to the extent of 75%.
‘Misplaced anxiety’
Mr. Jain argued that the anxiety of the Association of Healthcare Providers (AHP), which had first approached the High Court against the reservation order, was “completely misplaced”. He stated that the COVID-19 situation in Delhi has became critical in recent days though it may not have been as bad when the single-judge Bench passed stay the order in September. He reminded the court about fresh infections touching a daily high in Delhi of 8,573 on Wednesday.
Senior advocate Maninder Singh, appearing for the AHP, submitted that out of 1,742 ICU beds actually available, the 33 private hospitals have on their own dedicated 1,238 ICU beds for COVID-19 patients.
The High Court, however, said that the situation in Delhi is “fairly dynamic as regards spread of COVID-19 infection and hospitalisation of patients critically suffering from COVID-19 infection”.
It justified vacating the single-judge Bench order on account of the fact that “there has been a sea change in the ground reality” as when the earlier order was issued, the number of daily COVID-19 cases in Delhi was hovering around the 3,000-4,000 mark.
“The said figure has more than doubled as on date and it was expected of Delhi government to have kept abreast of the situation and monitor the same closely,” the court said.
The High Court also said that the 33 nodal officers, appointed by the Delhi government to co-ordinate with each of the 33 hospitals, ought to have been empowered to relax the norm of 80% blocking of ICU beds in the case of each hospital so as to deal with any situation pertaining to a non-COVID patient needing an ICU bed.
“There should have been some play in the joints left to the discretion of the hospitals in consultation with the Nodal Officers... We have expressed this view in the light of the fact that at the end of the day, no person suffering from a health emergency should be made to run from pillar to post if there is an ICU bed available in a particular hospital,” it said.