The Delhi government passed an order reserving 80% of the ICU beds for COVID-19 patients. It was of the opinion that this order was necessary to meet this active situation of COVID which requires urgent decisions.
But the Delhi High Court called the Government’s order as discriminatory, unreasonable, and violative of the fundamental rights of citizens as our Constitution guarantees to every citizen equal health care facility. The court argued on several points-
- How can a hospital pay importance to one group of patients and ignore the other?
- All patients are in an emergency in some way or the other. How can those patients be said to move from one hospital to another only because there are reservations?
- How can a government give life to one patient at the expense of others?
- ICU itself stands for the Intensive Care Unit. How can reservations be made for such serious places?
The court remarked that this reservation will in no way protect people from COVID-19 but will expose them to it. It said that the government had not taken into consideration any of the above facts and passed the order rashly.
But still, if the Delhi government feels that the order would serve the purpose, it has to disclose all the facts which were taken into consideration while reserving ICU beds.
Till then the court has stayed the order and put the case for hearing again on October 13, 2020.
