HimVani
Shimla (Aug 5): Himachal Pradesh High Court today directed the state government, the health department and the medical superintendent, IGMC, to file a affidavit about short term steps to be taken for providing facilities for thalassaemia patients at IGMC within 3 weeks and also detailed reply about long-term measures in 8 weeks.
The division bench comprising Chief Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice Rajiv Sharma also directed the government to state as to how many blood banks are there in HP and whether these are in position to meet the demand for blood. The orders were passed on the petition of advocate YK Thakur alleging that the facilities provided at the Indira Gandhi Medical College Hospital for thalassaemia patients are minimum, inadequate and below standard.
The petitioner has alleged that there are no separate wards and rooms for blood transfusion and blood test laboratory is quite far from children/emergency wards.
He said that the process of taking samples, cross matching of blood, verification of cross matching report of blood by doctors and collection of blood from blood bank takes considerable time.
He also alleged that blood transfusion is conducted by trainee doctors and sometimes by Class IV staff, who don’t have the requisite skills for doing the job and no senior pediatric consultant is available during the course of blood transfusion. He also said that blood transfusion is sometimes carried out in emergency ward, in children ward and sometimes in casualty, where the patients are exposed to infections and communicable diseases.
The petitioner said that there should be separate and independent ward for these patients with all infrastructures under one roof from taking samples to blood transfusion as is the case in the PGI, Chandigarh.
