SC slams Delhi govt for taking action against docs

Dhananjay.Mahapatra@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:18.06.2020

The Supreme Court on Wednesday slammed the Delhi government for threatening coercive action against doctors and healthcare workers who made public the sorry state of affairs in the city’s hospitals and ordered it to forthwith revoke the suspension order against a healthcare worker who had made a video of bodies lying in patient wards of Lok Nayak Hospital.

“You are shooting the messenger. You do not want the truth to come out. Doctors, nurses and healthcare workers are your warriors in the fight against Covid-19. They need support. The administration must understand that coercing doctors and healthcare staff while not paying them salaries will not help control the pandemic,” a bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, Sanjay Kishan Kaul and M R Shah said.

The hospital director did not deny bodies were kept in patient wards but blamed it on a contractual healthcare worker who was unwilling to touch them. He said the ward boy had made the video and that disciplinary action has been initiated and a detailed inquiry had been ordered into the incident.

Additional solicitor general Sanjay Jain told the court that the Delhi government had done its best to fight the pandemic and was geared to meet the situation to the best of its capability. “We are doing our best to build capacity. We are not justifying any lapse that might have happened in the past. We are also not admitting that everything is hunky-dory,” he said.

The hospital director did not deny bodies were kept in patient wards but blamed it on a contractual healthcare worker who was unwilling to touch them