Endeavour immediately to operationalise COVID facility at IHBAS: HC to Delhi govt

The Delhi High Court on Friday directed the Delhi government to make an endeavour to create and immediately operationalise a COVID facility at the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences (IHBAS), as proposed by it, in view of the acute shortage and severe demand for beds to treat coronavirus patients.

Justice Prathiba M Singh directed the Heath department of the Delhi government to process the proposal sent by IHBAS on May 6 to make available 60 to 80 of its beds, out of a total of 236, to create a COVID facility.

''If any additional measures are required to be taken for making the 60 to 80 beds at IHBAS as a specialised/ designated COVID facility, the same shall be done by the GNCTD in coordination with the hospital authorities. ''Further, an endeavour shall be made to immediately operationalise the said COVID facility at IHBAS, as per the applicable protocols and norms,'' the court said and listed the matter for hearing on May 13.

The issue of beds being available at IHBAS had come up during the hearing of a plea by the son of an 83-year-old man who was admitted at the institute for a neurological condition and was later found to be COVID positive.

As the institute was not a designated COVID facility, IHBAS wanted the patient shifted to a COVID hospital and the patient's son moved the high court to seek directions that he be not moved from there.

During the hearing in the first half of the day, when the court came to know that IHBAS has a capacity of 236 beds of which only around 50 were occupied, it asked the Delhi government why it had not been converted into a COVID facility.

''We are talking of a hospital right in the middle of the city. We are struggling to find beds for lawyers, judicial officers apart from the general public and they (IHBAS) have a huge facility which is being hardly used. We cannot keep a hospital empty like this,'' the court said.

It asked IHBAS, represented by advocate Tushar Sannu, to give the exact data of the beds occupied by patients and when the same was provided during the post lunch session, the court directed the Delhi government to take steps to convert some of the beds at the institute into a COVID facility.

With regard to the 83-year-old man, the Delhi government said a bed can be made available for him at Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital, but the patient's family declined to give permission to move him there.

As the patient and his family were against him being shifted from IHBAS, the court said he can continue to remain there as it was confident that the institute would endeavour to give the best care and treatment possible to him.

''It is made clear, that IHBAS would not be held liable in any manner, in as much as the petitioner and his family are conscious of the fact that the doctors at IHBAS may not have the same specialization required for a COVID patient - it not being a COVID-19 designated hospital - and also due to the fact that it is on the petitioner's insistence that he is not being moved to a COVID facility,'' the court said.

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