New Delhi, Nov 24 (IANS): The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sought response of the Centre, the Delhi Government, and others on a plea seeking directions to fill the vacancies of doctors and paramedical staff in government-run hospitals.

A bench of Justices D.N. Patel and Jyoti Singh issued notice to the respondents --the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of NCT of Delhi, All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS), Safdarjung Hospital, and Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital -- and listed the matter for further hearing on January 12, 2022.

The petitioner Dr Nand Kishore Garg stated that innocent and poor patients are being denied treatment on account of an acute shortage of doctors and paramedical staff, including misinformation about the availability of relevant infrastructure and specialised doctors.

In the plea filed through Advocate Shashank Deo Sudhi, it was submitted that the Central Government and Delhi Government had also not constituted any committee or commission to look into the aspects in areas of omission which led to deaths of innocent citizens of NCT of Delhi.

"Private hospitals are taking illegal advantage of the plight of helpless patients. There are several cases where the doctors of the government hospitals are referring the patient to the private hospitals, citing the lack of infrastructure in the government hospitals," the plea alleged.

It is evident that the government hospitals are completely ill-equipped to tackle the recent epidemic of Coronavirus which is threatening to engulf the whole population, even the protective mask and sanitisers are being black marketed across the city of Delhi and are being made available at prohibiting and exorbitant prices, the plea stated. The government is completely insensitive to the growing requirement of quality medical services which can be reflected from the RTI reply, the plea alleged.