Agartala: The fragile health service of Tripura and the performance of the director of the department have irked a division bench of High Court of Tripura comprising Chief Justice Deepak Gupta and Justice Subhashis Talapatra yesterday.
The court expressed frustration over the health services and commented that the enquiry report of death of 28 -yrs old Prasanta Das due to alleged negligent of the doctors was nothing else than a ‘cover up’ the negligent and inhuman acts of physicians of Agartala Govt Medical College (AGMC) and GBP Hospital.
“The health department had left no stone unturned to protect the erring doctors and paramedical staff of the GBP Hospital while preparing the enquiry report,” High Court observed and subsequently quashed the report.
The High Court asked the state government to constitute a fresh committee headed by Additional Chief Secretary and Health Commissioner Dr K V Satyanarayana, Addl Director, Medical Education Dr G K Debbarma, Rtd Addl Medical Superintendent of GBP Hospital Dr Partha Sarathi Chakraborty, Retd Addl District Judge Subhash Chandra Saha and President, High Court Bar Association P K Biswas.
Following media report of the death of Prasanta Das of Belonia due to alleged medical negligence at GBP Hospital on July 23, the division bench had issued notices to the six bureaucrats including the Addl Chief Secretary and the Director of Health Services asking several questions related to the health services on September 10.
High Court of Tripura had summoned top management of state health department including Chief Secretary and Director of Vigilance to appear before the court yesterday personally and submit affidavit on specific queries.
“Normally we are very hesitant to use strong language, but in this case, we are compelled to state that this finding of the health department over the death of the Prasanta is totally erroneous and based on total misreading of the documents and without examining any of the necessary witnesses,” the court said.
“We regret that we have to use such harsh words, but we have no other option but to say that the officers who comprised the committee did not approach the matter with the sensitivity which it required nor did they understand the gravity of the orders earlier passed by us”, the order mentioned.
The order stated it appeared that Director of Health Services, who led the panel, had turned a blind eye towards the observations of the court. Even, the panel did not record the statement of the victim’s mother. Rather the committee have very conveniently ignored the statement of the mother virtually treating her as a liar and accepted self serving statements of the physicians and paramedical staff.
“Why did the panel not feel it necessary to examine other independent witnesses, such as the patients who were admitted in the hospital on that day? The answer is obvious that they did not want any inconvenient findings to be given,” the order maintained.
The bench further said when a court passes orders, the court expects the officials to not only follow the orders in letter but also in spirit.
“We are purposefully not going into certain aspects of the mater, but we find that the findings of the committee are not in accordance even with the treatment recommended in the bed head ticket”.
However, the bench also had asked the new inquiry panel to submit their report within two months and “it shall be clearly stated whether there was any lack of medical treatment or facilities provided to the young boy.”,
Upset by present situation in two major govt hospitals, the court asked the authority to arrange at least two vehicles in the GBP Hospital and IGM Hospital to ferry doctors during emergency period. “We found that there are no vehicles available when doctor are asked to come on emergency duty. This kind of situation can’t be tolerated to continue in the government hospitals like GB and IGM”, the bench said. (UNI)