Bombay High Court asks Centre, Maharashtra government to file replies on COVID-19 management

The Bombay High Court on Thursday directed the Centre and the Maharashtra government to file their respective replies by May 4 on the management of available resources including hospital beds Remdesivir drug vaccines and oxygen to tackle the COVID19 pandemicThe HC conducted a daylong hearing on several issues related to the management of such resources and during the proceedings the Maharashtra government told the court about steps taken by it to tackle the rising cases of COVID19 and provide treatment to patientsA bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice GS Kulkarni said no person in the state should be denied a COVID19 test on account of the lack of a valid doctors prescription for the sameIt also heard a bunch of public interest litigations seeking directions pertaining to shortage of Remdesivir and oxygen supply and urged for monitoring of blackmarketing and profiteering allegedly taking place during procurement and distribution of COVID19 drugsDuring the hearing Advocate General AG Ashutosh Kumbhakoni who appeared for the Maharashtra government told HC that the state was conducting COVID19 tests making available hospital beds maximising oxygen production and doing all that it could do tackle the rising infectionsKumbhakoni said Maharashtra was producing 1200 metric tonnes MT of medical grade oxygen daily and importing liquid oxygen from other states to meet the daily demand of 1500 MT of the lifesaving gas used to treat critical coronavirus patientsHe said Maharashtra the worst COVID19affected state in the country was using almost 100 per cent of available oxygen for treatment of patients and leaving just minimum amount of the gas for pharma and other allied industriesKumbhakoni however said in the coming weeks the state would need around 2000 MT of oxygen daily and require the Centres assistance in procuring oxygen then We have limited number of tankers to import liquid oxygen currently We have also ruled out possibility of air lifting liquid oxygenWe are using RoRo roll onroll off trains to transport cryogenic tankers Kumbhakoni said The AG told the bench that Maharashtra had received 269000 units of Remdesivir a key COVID19 drug which is in high demand from the Union governmentThe BMCs counsel senior advocate Anil Sakhre said municipal hospitals in Mumbai had adequate stock of Remdesivir injections to last for the next few days Kumbhakoni observed that citizens required to be informed that Remdesivir was not a magic drug and that it was to be taken only upon a doctors prescriptionAt this the HC said the Centre and the state government must issue an advisory for citizens on availability and use of Remdesivir The court said there had to be a portal for availability of essential COVID19 drugs You should realise this is emergency situation The situation is getting grim with each passing day it saidReferring to news reports from last year which said that people needed to be cautious about the COVID19 spread till June the bench said Had we not lowered our guards at least till 30th of June 2021 this situation would not have been there The HC asked the state government about steps being taken to decongest prisons to prevent the spread of COVID19 among inmates and jail staffThe bench said the prison authorities must seek the relevant magistrate courts order on a case to case basis for shifting inmates from one prison to another It directed magistrates to decide within 48 hours on applications made by the prison authorities to shift undertrials from crowded jails The HC noted that as per the states data despite the coronavirusinducted lockdown crime rate in Maharashtra had gone up in 2020However crimes like dacoity robbery theft rape cheating molestation and kidnapping had gone down drastically it observed The HC directed the state government to consider the suggestions made by the Mumbaibased Tata Institute of Social Sciences on decongesting prisonsThe bench said it will pass a detailed order covering all relevant issues by Thursday eveningThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever