FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 2024
Team Herald
PANJIM: The South Goa Advocates Association has filed a writ petition in the High Court of Bombay at Goa on Tuesday seeking directions to be issued to the State government to ensure that various measures are taken regarding the management of the COVID-19 pandemic in the State given the risk it poses to the health of the public and COVID patients.
They pointed out that due to inadequate supply of oxygen and other medical facilities in the State the oxygen supply in various COVID-19 wards is not even close to being sufficient.
With the use of documents to support their claims, they lamented that oxygen cylinders being used for patients get over in the middle of the night and it takes at least 2-3 hours for replacement cylinders, during which period, the patients are kept without oxygen supply with the blood oxygen saturation dropping to less than 60 per cent, when the normal blood oxygen saturation should ideally be between 96 per cent and 98 per cent.
They added that the bed situation is even worse wherein critical patients have to be managed on trolleys and floors and kept on ventilators in the critical COVID wards. They pointed out that wards with the capacity of 30 beds have more than 50 patients on average.
They acknowledged that the State government has managed to set up some facilities with additional beds but rued the fact that the same lack steady supply of oxygen causing hardships and severe medical problems to the patients.
They also said that in addition to these issues, there are various others plaguing the health system in Goa, which is causing havoc due to the overburdened healthcare infrastructure.
The petition filed by SGAA president Adv Antonio Clovis Da Costa, they have prayed for a set of seven measures to be implemented.
These include the provision of adequate supply of oxygen to all patients and the creation of additional beds with adequate supply of oxygen for patients suffering from COVID-19.
They have further demanded that there be adequate supply of life saving medicines to COVID-19 patients and have called for measures to be implemented to enhance the testing programme for COVID-19 in order to ensure timely detection and treatment of COVID-19.
On the vaccine related problems, they have also demanded that adequate supply of vaccines for COVID-19 be made available for all age groups.
They also referred to the recent security threat to the resident doctors and staff at Goa Medical College (GMC) and have asked that adequate security measures for doctors and medical personnel be put in place to avoid cases of harassment and violence against doctors and medical personnel in COVID-19 wards.
They also have asked that it be ensured that there is additional recruitment of doctors and other media personnel in the State to handle the crisis unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The State and Central governments, the Goa Association of Resident Doctors, the Dean of GMC and the Directorate of Health Services are respondents in the matter.
The case will be coming up for a hearing on Thursday.
