Cuttack, July 6: Orissa High Court has ordered the health and family welfare secretary to appear before it on July 10 in connection with the implementation of recommendations by an inquiry commission on the emergency services provided at the SCB hospital's casualty department.

On July 3, the bench for PIL on civic problems of the city was hearing a petition alleging inadequacies in treatment at SCB's casualty department. Maitree Sansad, a city-based socio-cultural organisation, had filed the petition.

"The division bench of Justice Indrajit Mohanty and Justice S.C. Parija issued the direction after it had found that the secretary of the health and family welfare department had not complied with a court direction issued eight months ago," petitioner counsel Ajay Mohanty told The Telegraph.

On September 6 last year, the commission was appointed to look into the complaints made in the petition. The commission, which had former director of the medical education and training Goplal Kar and advocate Ajay Mohanty as its members, submitted its report on October 17.

The same day, the court had directed the health and family welfare department's secretary to file within two weeks an affidavit "indicating the steps that can be taken for implementing the suggestions" made in the report.

On November 14, the government sought at least one month for implementation of the recommendations. While allowing time till the second week of January this year, the court directed the secretary to file an affidavit "indicating the steps taken for implementing the suggestions" by then.

Taking note of non-compliance of the order on March 20, the court directed for filing of the affidavit "positively by March 25".

The probe by the commission had found the emergency health services at the casualty department to patients "highly inadequate".

"The available space in the casualty department is 7,611sqft, which is insufficient. At least 24,000sqft space is required," the report said.

"This extra space is available for construction on the south side of the existing casualty department that goes up to the surgery department," the report suggested.

"The entire casualty department should be centrally air-conditioned," the report suggested. The probe had found one minor operation theatre (OT) with two OT tables at the department as "highly inadequate for surgery and dressing purposes".

The report pointed to demands caused by the average turnout of 200 patients, 25 per cent of whom needed neuro-surgical trauma care. It said there was need for 100 more beds.