Govt hospitals assure court not to misuse ambulances

New Delhi, Jan 29 (UNI) Government-owned hospitals, except the Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) and the Safdarjung Hospital in the Capital, today submitted before the Delhi High Court in writing that they would not misuse the ambulances for private purposes.

A division bench of Justices Swatanter Kumar and H R Malhotra directed the RML Hospital and the Safdarjung Hospital to file their undertakings by February 6, the next date of hearing.

On January 24, the last date of hearing, the court had come out heavily on the state-owned hospitals for allegedly misusing ambulances for private purposes.

The bench had asked the Director General of Health Services (Central government) and the Director Health (Delhi government) to submit before the court the number of ambulances used in each of the hospitals.

The court had also asked the authorities to state reasons for non-availability of sufficient number of ambulances in the hospitals and Centralised Accident and Trauma Services (CATS).

Counsel and petitioner Varun Goswami submitted before the court that due to non-availability of government ambulances, people were hiring private ambulances at higher prices.

CATS had only 100 ambulances and many of them were not in operative stage, alleged Mr Goswami.

UNI