Aadhaar, other details delay receiving of drug, Delhi High Court told

NEW DELHI:  The Delhi High Court was on Thursday informed that hospitals were being asked to fill up patient data like Aadhaar in the portal created for keeping track of distribution of Remdesivir before release of the medicine and this was leading to delay in receiving the drug and administering it
to patients.

“Distribution of drugs has to be decentralised,” suggested senior advocate Rajshekhar Rao, who is assisting the court as amicus curiae, in dealing with the issues related to Covid-19. He said that the hospitals should be given the option to update the patient data later.

Taking note of his submissions, the court was of the view that the patient verification process can be done with other documents, including RTPCR reports, and not necessarily Aadhaar only.

It also said that when an RTPCR report is uploaded on the portal it should do away with the requirement for Aadhaar which would be already available with ICMR when it updates the test results.

Rao told Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Palli that the stock can be released to the hospitals on a pro rata basis keeping in view their usage in the past without waiting for updation of the patient data and its subsequent verification to release the medicine.

“These are the bottlenecks in the system,” he said and added that “movement of medication needs to be faster”. He also told the court that the requisite system should be in place soon.