Delhi High Court Vacates Stay Order On Reservation of 80% ICU Beds In 33 Pvt Hospitals For Covid Patients

A bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Subramanium Prasad today vacated a stay on an order of Delhi's AAP Government which had reserved 80% of ICU beds in 33 private hospitals in the capital for Covid-19 patients. The court further directed the Delhi Government to file an affidavit within 3 days and posted the matter to be heard on merit before the Single Judge bench on 26.11.2020, directing the parties not to seek an adjournment on the date. The bench cited the spiralling of Covid-19 cases, with the number standing at 8593 as of Wednesday, while coming down heavily on the government for giving 'knee-jerk reactions' and failing to have taken steps in anticipation. Opposing the plea of reservation was the Association of Healthcare Providers, being represented by Sr. Adv. Singh who argued against the reservation policy and raised two major arguments. One, that the policy was putting at risk the lives of non-Covid patients who came to the hospitals seeking emergency treatment and required ICU beds, yet, due to the reservation requirement even vacant ICU beds could not be provided to the non-Covid patients. He claimed that deaths had happened due to such non-availability. Two, that despite ICU beds being available in the Covid side, due to the issue of segregation of the area from the non-Covid side, the beds could not be provided to non-Covid emergency patients. He summarized his argument stating that snatching the facility of an ICU bed from a similarly situated non-Covid patient and handing it over to the Covid patient was in violation of Article 21 of the Constitution, and that "snatching from one category to give to another could not be called augmentation." He further stated that even without the compulsory reservation requirement, the 33 private hospitals were already providing nearly 60% ICU beds for Covid patients. Justice Hima Kohli and Justice Prasad remarked, "If a patient with a heart attack comes to one of these hospitals, should you deny the Covid ICU bed to the non-Covid ICU bed? You can't keep an ICU bed in a Covid ward for a non-Covid patient. That works the other way also. If you don't do proper segregation, you'll infect everyone." ASG Jain, on behalf of the Government, said that he was in 100% agreement with the court on this point and later in the hearing suggested that in case such a scenario arose, the "bed will be shifted". Justice Kohli then expressed her surprise through the remark, "It's not a chair. It's a bed with full (ICU) facilities." In response to the segregation issue, Sr. Adv. Singh interjected stating that, 'none of these hospitals have segregation facilities for Covid and non-Covid ICU beds', upon which Justice Kohli asked Singh if she could record this submission, on which Singh stated that 'generally' there was no segregation. The court sharply cut him off at that point stating that it didn't want any general statements, and then asked how many deaths had happened till date in the 33 hospitals of non-Covid emergency patients due to the non-availability of ICU beds, to which Sr. Adv. Singh replied that there was a 'possibility'. ASG Jain then pointed out that only 75% of the 20% ICU beds for non-Covid patients in these 33 hospitals were infact occupied at present. The Court then decided that the stay on reservation would be vacated.

Delhi High Court Vacates Stay Order On Reservation of 80% ICU Beds In 33 Pvt Hospitals For Covid Patients

Shreya Agarwal

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