HC orders health secy to submit affidavit on hospital

The Orissa High Court has refused to accept an affidavit filed by a junior officer of state health department and asked its secretary to file a fresh submission on the suggestions of the Cuttack Collector for the government hospital here in connection with the death of an Italian tourist last year.
"Why is the government filing such evasive affidavit," a division bench of Justice Indrajit Mohanti and Justice Biswanath Mohapatra of the High Court yesterday asked and ordered the health secretary to file an affidavit by Tuesday next after getting the affidavit of the under secretary of the department on the issue.

Earlier acting on a PIL on the death of the Italian tourist at the SCB Medical College and Hospital here, the High Court had asked the government to file an affidavit stating the steps it had taken on the suggestions made by the Cuttack Collector to avoid such unfortunate incident in future.
The under secretary of the health department filed the affidavit not specifying anything the government had done till date on the suggestions made by the collector to prevent such death in the hospital.
Cuttack Collector Girish S N while enquiring into the death of the Italian tourist had suggested that the premier referral hospital should have an institutional mechanism to take care of unidentified patients.

The collector in his report had also observed that had there been some isolated beds for infectious patients in ICU, better treatment could have been provided to the Italian tourist who died allegedly due to medical negligence.
Expressing shock over the government's indifferent attitude, the High Court was of the opinion that the collector's recommendations were aimed at improving the health care infrastructure and facilities and the government should have explored possibilities to implement the recommendations.