Top priority to critical care, says Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal

New Delhi: Three days after a newborn baby died due to lack of oxygen supply in a government hospital, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has directed health minister Satyendar Jain to submit a concrete action plan within a week to ensure that critical patients requiring life support do not have to run around hospitals in times of crises.

“It has been noticed in a number of cases that family members of patients in critical conditions, who rush them to hospitals, are turned away citing the common excuses of either lack of facilities or non-availability of beds. The family then has to undergo various ordeals. They do not have information as to where necessary facilities would be available. Family members are forced to rush critical patients from one hospital to another, till any hospital, if at all, agrees to admit such patients,” said a statement issued by the government. On Thursday, this newspaper had reported that a one-day-old baby girl, who had breathing issues and low heart rate after she was born, died as four government hospitals — LNJP, Chacha Nehru, GTB, and Jag Pravesh Chandra — refused to admit the child citing lack of critical care beds with ventilator facilities.

The chief minister has said that if for some justified reason, like any hospital lacking life saving facilities or non-availability of beds when a patient, who is in a critical condition, is brought for admission, then it will be the mandatory emergency duty of that hospital to find out in which other hospital such a facility is available, and it should be part of the clearly laid down standard operating procedure (SOP) that the patient is sent to that hospital without any delay.

“It is an unacceptable scenario that helpless family members keep running from pillar to post and critical time, in which the life of a serious patient could have been saved, is often lost,” said the statement.    

The chief minister has asked the health minister to include in the SOP that the hospital, where a critical patient is first brought for admission, will ensure that the patient gets immediate life saving care.

The primary objective of the action plan will be to ensure that the live data of functional critical care facilities in all Delhi government hospitals is readily and easily available. 

“He has made it clear that loss of lives due lack of facilities in the hospitals of Delhi is unacceptable since the government is committed to provide the best health care for the residents of the national capital, and that it has allocated nearly Rs 6,000 crore in the current financial year for the health sector,” the statement added.