Agartala: The Tripura High Court has summoned top management officials of the state health department including chief secretary, director of state vigilance department to appear before the court on September 24 personally and submit an affidavit on specific queries asked for.
The summon came after reviewing the statement of a woman on Tuesay on a suo-moto case registered by the High Court, following newspaper report of 26-yr-old Prasant Das’s death in Agartala Government Medical College and hospital on July 23 due to negligence in treatment.
The report stated that one Marubala Das of Belonia had brought her ailing son to a doctor’s chamber on July 21 with severe stomach problem followed by complaints of respiration.
The victim’s mother alleged that no doctor attended to her son despite repeated requests.
“In fact, there was no doctor at night in the hospital but when the patient’s condition deteriorated, the nurse dosed him some injections, resulting in severe respiratory problem and again another injection was pushed to counteract the condition, which resulted in Das’s death,” Marubala complained.
The incident was reported in a local daily in detail, which had attracted the attention of Chief Justice of the High Court Deepak Gupta, consequently, he registered a suo-moto case in the matter.
He had directed Sessions Judge of Belonia to record the Marubala’s statement and submit it to the High Court.
Upon receiving the statement, division bench of the High Court comprising Chief Justice Gupta and Justice Subhasis Talapatra summoned seven respondents-chief secretary, health secretary, director health services, Medical Superintendent of IGM and GBP Hospital, Principal Agartala Government Medical College and director, state vigilance department.
The court asked them to appear before the court personally along with affidavits clarifying separate queries sought from each of the respondents on September 24 without fail. However, if any of them has some pre-occupation on serious, urgent ground,it should be informed to the High Court on or before September 16.
“What steps have been taken by the state government to ensure better medical facilities in the hospitals and how many doctors were punished for negligence in duty over past three years?,” the court asked the chief secretary.
Also, the court asked health secretary to reply on the system of the doctors in the hospitals at night.
The court sought reply from the director health service, principal of medical college and medical superintendents of the hospitals whether, “they were aware of Marubala’s incident and if yes, what action had been taken so far?”
They were also asked to submit the duty chart of the doctors of the two hospitals present between January 1 and August 31, 2013.
They were also asked to submit the list of the specialist doctors, professors, associate professors and assistant professors, who attended to the patients after receiving their call.
The court sought the report from the director, vigilance regarding administrative action taken against the doctors in past 10 years for negligence of duty. (UNI)