Ahmedabad: The Gujarat High Court bench headed by Chief Justice Virkam Nath has in its 15th of April order in Suo Motu PIL regarding Covid19 pandemic related issues asked the State government to do following things:

The on­line portal giving details of the
availability of vacant beds and occupied beds
under different categories for Covid patients
for all districts be controlled by the State.
Instead of data being uploaded twice a day,
the availability of beds should be displayed
on a real time basis on the portal i.e. as
soon as a bed is occupied in a particular
hospital, the number of vacancies should go
down and as soon as a bed is made available
by discharge of a patient in a particular
hospital, the number of vacancies should be
immediately displayed as increased. This will
save a lot of hardship to the patients as
also their attendants and family members in
reaching the right hospital may be of choice
for admission and treatment rather than
running, waiting and again running to
different hospitals.

The status of availability of oxygen vis­a­vis
demand be reported to the Court.

State should publish data by making efforts
to find out actual number of Covid positive
cases so as to remove general conception from
the minds of the people that data given by
the State is not accurate. Necessary
arrangements should be made by issuing
statement by responsible officer of the State
with regard to the number of positive Covid
patients, number of deaths due to Covid and
number of deaths due to Covid with
comorbidity so that faith and trust can be
restored in the minds of public at large.

Any material or facility or
infrastructure, if lacking in required
numbers should be accepted by the State
publicly and remedial steps should be taken
immediately to improve the situation. The
State should take up the onus of declaring
the accurate data so as to eliminate the
others from propagating the same with spice
and causing panic amongst the people.

Let this matter be now listed before us on
Tuesday i.e. 20.04.2021, to be taken up at 11.00
a.m.

The State to ensure setting up of such
laboratories in all the districts where it is
not available, also in the towns / talukas
and tribal areas of the State as early as
possible. For this, the State may explore
public­private partnership mode or any other
mode which may encourage setting up of such
laboratories throughout the State.

Existing capacity for RTPCR testing be
increased across the State in order to reduce
time for collection of sample and getting the
report ready after analyzing the sample. The
delay in getting an RTPCR sample being
collected and the further delay being caused
in getting the report, may be forthwith
reduced.

Accurate reporting of RTPCR testing
with correct figures of positive results be
made public. The State should not feel shy of
publishing the correct data of RTPCR testing
results, if such figures are not being
correctly reported.

Remdisivir injection which at present is
being looked at as a life saving drug for
Covid­19 virus infected patients, when
apparently it is not so, should be explained
and communicated to the public at large by
the experts of the subject in the State
through print, digital and electronic media.
Otherwise so long as the myth continues,
Remdesivir injection will always be in a
deficit and being misused by black­marketeers
and hoarders. Such an exercise would also
reduce the over prescription and undue
prescription of the said injection.

DeshGujarat