HC summon as juvenile home boy dies due to lack of ambulance

New Delhi, Feb 12 (UNI) The Delhi High Court today summoned the Secretary and Director of the Social Welfare department of the Delhi government to be present in court on February 26 for allegedly not providing an ambulance to an inmate of the Juvenile Home, who died due to lack of medical attention.

While hearing a PIL on misuse of ambulances, a division bench of Justices Swatanter Kumar and H R Malhotra directed the top two officials to come to the court with all the documents regarding eight to nine ambulances it had received from the Centralised Accident and Trauma Services (CATS).

Advocate Varun Goswami submitted that a 14-year-old inmate of the juvenile home in Narela in North-West Delhi died as he could not be taken to hospital.

''It was a pathetic situation. Despite having eight to nine ambulances with them, the SWD could not provide one for a patient,'' the bench observed.

The juvenile homes are run by the SWD and CATS had given fully-equipped ambulances to the department for their proper use, said the counsel.

The court directed the Delhi Health Secretary to convene a meeting of the Medical Superintendent of the public hospitals in two days to discuss the issue of misuse of the ambulances in their respective possession.

All the hospitals were directed to submit undertakings that they would use the ambulances only for the patient care.

UNI