Delhi lieutenant governor Anil Baijal on Monday struck down the Arvind Kejriwal government’s orders restricting treatment at most city hospitals to the capital’s residents and tightening the criteria for Covid-19 testing, steps largely criticised by the medical community.
Baijal’s move came a day after Kejriwal said that state government hospitals, and almost all private hospitals in Delhi, would treat only those able to prove they lived in the capital.
Most national parties have criticised the decision, and four petitions were filed in Delhi High Court against it on Monday. The high court had in 2018 shot down a similar move by the Kejriwal government.
In his order, Baijal said the “Supreme Court has invariably held in several successive judgements that ‘Right to Health’ is an integral part of ‘Right to Life’ under Article 21 of the Constitution of India”. He also cited the 2018 high court order.
Baijal, in his capacity as chairperson of the Delhi Disaster Management Authority, directed the Delhi government to “ensure that monitoring/ treatment is not denied to any patient on the ground of not being a resident of the NCT of Delhi”.
The Disaster Management Act, 2005, under which the lockdown is being implemented across India, gives overriding powers to the chairperson of a state’s disaster management authority. In Union Territories like Delhi, the lieutenant governor holds the post.
In a separate order, Baijal scrapped a June 2 order by Delhi’s director-general of health services that had tightened the eligibility criteria for coronavirus testing.
The June 2 order had dropped the word “asymptomatic” from the Indian Council of Medical Research guidelines that mandated testing of “asymptomatic direct and high-risk contacts of a confirmed case between 5 and 10 days of coming into contact”.
Kejriwal had urged asymptomatic people not to turn up for testing, saying the system would collapse if they did.
On Monday, the chief minister signalled he would abide by Baijal’s decision.
“LG Sahib’s order has created a huge problem and challenge for the people of Delhi. Providing treatment for people coming from all over the country during the corona pandemic is a big challenge,” he tweeted.
“Maybe it is God’s will for us to serve the people of the whole country. We will try to provide treatment to all.”
Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia had earlier alleged the BJP had forced “the LG to pass this order”, breaking an almost four-month moratorium on attacking the BJP and the Centre.
“This (reserving hospitals for local people) was a well-thought-out strategy to ensure treatment for Delhi’s residents if cases spike, but the BJP has forced the LG to pass this order,” he said.
“I demand this decision be rolled back. If people here die without beds, you will have to take responsibility.”
The state government claims that more than 60 per cent of the patients in Delhi’s hospitals are from outside the capital.
Sisodia added: “Instead of politicking, the Centre and the BJP should cooperate with the state government and try to manage the disaster like it should be. In Delhi, the BJP has done dirty politics and has begun to spread a disaster in the name of disaster management.”
He also cited the recent scandals relating to personal protective equipment (PPE) in Himachal Pradesh and ventilators in Gujarat, both BJP-ruled states.
The CPI and the CPM emphasised that most of the poor in Delhi lacked the documents the state government had listed as necessary to receive treatment at the capital’s hospitals.
CPM parliamentarian Elamaram Kareem wrote to Kejriwal that several “students, migrant workers, media persons, and even health workers” had none of the seven categories of documents mentioned.
Delhi has 17,712 active cases while 874 people have died.