Odisha High Court upholds conviction of Congress MLA in corruption case
It’s pertinent to note here that a special vigilance court had sentenced the lawmaker a three-year rigorous imprisonment term.
The Orissa High Court has ordered the constitution of four-member panels in each of the 30 districts in the State to conduct ground-level assessment of the government-run health service network.
Acting on reports of fast-deteriorating healthcare facilities and rampant private practice by medicos, a division bench of the HC comprising Chief Justice Dr. S. Muralidhar and Justice A.K. Mohapatra directed the panels to inspect the government hospitals unannounced and furnish compliance reports with photographic and video graphic evidence to the court on or before 3 December.
“The Secretary of every District Legal Services Authority (DLSA) will forthwith constitute a four-member team, which will include two lawyers of the panel of DLSA – one of whom preferably should be a woman lawyer – and two para legal volunteers (PLVs), who will undertake a visit in the next week to one District Headquarters Hospital (DHH), one Community Health Centre (CHC) and two Primary Health Centres (PHC) in the district at different hours unannounced”, the HC division bench said.
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The district-level panels will examine whether the medical staff including doctors, nurses, ward Staff are attending to the duty assigned to them.
Besides, they will look into the condition of the concerned facility in terms of cleanliness, sanitation, toilet facilities, power and infrastructure, adequacy of stocks of drugs, medicines, equipment; availability of ambulance and accessibility, connectivity by road, availability of public transport to reach the facility.
The general condition of each of such DHH, CHC and PHC will be depicted by the team in their report supported by photographs and video clippings taken on a mobile phone. This will be done over a period of a week at different times, unannounced.
The district administration and police will extend their full cooperation to the team to carry out their task without hindrance. The Secretary DLSA will coordinate with the authorities for this purpose, the HC concluded.
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