Patna, Aug. 31: The high court today directed the Patna AIIMS director, the Guru Govind Singh Hospital superintendent and the district magistrate to hold a meeting and chalk out modalities to engage the super-speciality hospital doctors in treatment at the Patna City hospital.
The division bench comprising Justice Prakash Chandra Verma and Justice Aditya Kumar Trivedi was hearing a PIL filed by the Council for Protection of Public Right and Welfare, a non-government organisation, seeking the expeditious completion of Jai Prakash Narayan Institute of Medical Sciences (JPNAIIMS) within a stipulated timeframe.
The bench asked the state counsel, Shashi Bhushan Kumar, to submit a report by September 12 as how and when the Patna AIIMS doctors would start treatment at Guru Govind Singh Hospital.
During the hearing, the petitioner’s counsel, Brajesh Kumar, submitted an affidavit in which he said the AIIMS college was ready and would be inaugurated in September. He said the college’s construction had gained pace and would be complete in six to eight months. “The hospital’s structure is almost complete. The finishing touches are being given,” Kumar said.
Kumar said the JPNAIIMS has neither got approval from Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (Barc), Bombay, to open an oncology department (cancer) nor the Centre has started tendering process for constructing 20 operation theatres at the super-speciality hospital being built in Phulwarisharif on the lines of AllMS, Delhi. The court directed the central government to complete the tendering process within a month for constructing the operation theatres.
Following the August 29 court directive, a three-member high court committee made a surprise inspection of the site and found that the work was going on at a slow pace, the state government counsel, Shashi Bhushan Kumar, said.
“On behalf of the state government, I submitted a report to the court. The work is going on but the pace of work was certainly less than required between March 2012 and August 4, 2012. The committee has found substantial progress since August 4 when the committee had last visited the site. A total of 1,100 labourers were found working on the site and there was sufficient number of machinery, equipment and materials,” Kumar said.
The court also directed the district magistrate, who has been appointed as deputy director (administration) of JPNAIIMS, to remove all encroachments and erect a boundary wall around Guru Govind Singh Hospital. The court directive came following its committee’ report on encroachments and piling of garbage in and around Guru Govind Singh Hospital. The court asked the Patna Municipal Corporation commissioner to get the garbage cleared from the hospital premises.
On July 18, the court had ordered selected professors, associate professors, assistant professors and specialist doctors in emergency and trauma departments of Patna AIIMS to join the Patna City hospital by July 25 and start treating patients at the 450-bed facility from the next day.
Guru Govind Singh Hospital would be attached with the JPNAIIMS till the latter’s own building comes up.
