Adopt best practices of AIIMS in Delhi hospitals, HC orders Kejriwal government

A seven-member committee of experts & govt officials, set up by the HC earlier this year, will assess facilities at AIIMS and Safdarjung hospitals.

The G.B. Pant Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research in Delhi | Photo: Suraj Singh Bisht | ThePrint

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has ordered the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in the national capital to assess the facilities at the Centre-run AIIMS and Safdarjung hospitals and “adopt their best practices in Delhi government hospitals if required”.

The order was passed after the Delhi government, through additional standing counsel Sanjoy Ghose, offered to ensure that best practices from AIIMS and Safdarjung are followed in its hospitals.

“Mr. Ghose submits that the aim, objective and purpose of filing this application is to ensure that the best practices from AIIMS and Safdarjung Hospital with regard to services and functioning of the hospitals, which are operated by the Central government, also be operated by the state government,” a bench of Justice G.S. Sistani and Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani stated in the order, a copy of which is with ThePrint.

The assessment will be conducted by the same seven-member committee, comprising experts and government officials, that the court had set up on 29 May on a public interest litigation (PIL) alleging that Delhi government-run hospitals are in poor shape.

The committee had filed a status report, saying the state medical facilities are “reeling under crumbling infrastructure and other glaring infirmities”, following which the court passed its order last week.

The status report further found that there are non-functional instruments, non-standardisation and poor specification and fixing of tenders, poor availability of drugs and overcrowding among others in the 35 government-run hospitals.

The PIL had been filed by a teacher, Madhu Bala, who lost her nine-month-old foetus when she was admitted to Guru Teg Bahadur (GTB) Hospital in Dilshad Garden.

Govt’s own think-tank had made similar suggestions

The Delhi government’s own think-tank, the Dialogue and Development Commission (DDC), had made similar suggestions in a report submitted to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in 2018.

As ThePrint reported last month that the DDC had studied the Centre-run AIIMS and Safdarjung hospitals to make recommendations about reducing overcrowding and improving public experience, developing a modern health management system, computerisation and a host of other measures. But none of the recommendations have been implemented yet.

The DDC report, accessed by ThePrint, was based on a survey conducted over two months. Its team visited three Delhi government hospitals — G.B. Pant Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (GIPMER), the LNJP Hospital and the Maulana Azad Institute of Dental Sciences (MAIDS) — as well as AIIMS, Safdarjung and the privately-run Sir Ganga Ram Hospital.