The Orissa High Court expressed grave concern on Saturday about the state of healthcare services in the state and gave the government a month to address the situation. After a special sitting on a holiday to hear a PIL filed by Chittaranjan Mohanty, a lawyer and social activist, on the quality of healthcare facilities in the state in 2018, the court gave the directive.
A long hearing was held to examine the reports filed by district legal services authorities (DLSAs) on the situation of government hospitals and health centres.
According to the reports, the division bench of Chief Justice S Muralidhar and Justice RK Pattanaik determined that urgent corrective actions are required in many areas.
“Nearly six months have been elapsed since the visits were undertaken by the teams of the DLSAs. The court finds from the reports submitted by them that in many of the districts urgent corrective action requires to be taken. Lack of cleanliness is a major issue as are lack of functional, clean toilets. Even the availability of clean drinking water is a big problem. In many places the registers for stocks of drugs were either not available or not properly maintained. It is a matter of concern that, in many of the DHHs, CHCs and PHCs ambulance were not available.”
Doctors on the rolls were missing in several instances, either completely or partially. Nurses and staff at many DHHs, CHCs, and PHCs are insufficient, patients are being forced to attend to a private institution for medical diagnostic tests, according to various accounts from the districts.
The bench went on to say that this is an issue that requires immediate response from the state government.
On August 9, 2021, the Court issued a detailed order requesting an affidavit from the Additional Chief Secretary to the Government Department of Health and Family Welfare detailing the exact number of vacancies in each of the Orissa Medical Health Service (OMHS) and Orissa Medical Education Services (OMES) cadres, as well as what time-bound steps were proposed to be taken to fill those vacancies.
The Court noted in its order dated November 17, 2021, the petitioner’s concern that doctors attached to Government Health Facilities, such as District Health Centers (DHCs), Community Health Centers (CHCs), and Primary Health Centers (PHCs), are also practising privately without attending to their responsibilities at the Government Health Facilities.
The bench directed the State government to organise crack teams to visit each of the health facilities, but said these visits might be delayed for a month to allow the facilities to implement all of the corrective measures.
The experiment was anticipated to be finished by the end of July 2022, with the crack teams’ report due on or before August 1. The next court date for the case has been set for August 10.