Justice Rajan Roy and Justice Manjive Shukla of the Allahabad High Court struck down the status quo on Tuesday, demanding a tangible roadmap from the Uttar Pradesh government to stop the chaotic transfer of critically ill patients. The bench, sitting in Lucknow, ordered the Additional Chief Secretary, Medical Health and Family Welfare, to file an affidavit outlining immediate and long-term measures to strengthen newly opened medical colleges. The directive specifically targets the systemic failure to equip these institutions with super-speciality facilities and ventilators, forcing rural patients to drag themselves to Lucknow for basic critical care.
The legal battle was sparked by the death of a newborn from Sultanpur. Ashutosh Kumar Singh filed a Public Interest Litigation after his family was forced to sprint the child from Sultanpur to Lucknow, hopping between KGMU, RMLIMS, and SGPGI before the infant died. The court noted the transfer used an ordinary ambulance, a lapse SGPGI doctors later cited as the moment the child's condition first deteriorated. This isn't just about one tragedy; it's about a state healthcare system that treats rural infants like logistics errors.
Accounts of what happened at KGMU are sharply divided. KGMU doctors claimed the family went to the fourth-floor Neonatal Care ICU, found no bed, and then failed to return the child when asked. The family disputes this, alleging KGMU staff explicitly told them to go to RMLIMS because no bed was available, and that their request to have the child examined in the ambulance was ignored. The bench pointed out that this very confusion highlights the desperate need for qualified personnel to guide rural families through complex hospital procedures.
The court proposed an online referral mechanism to verify bed availability before dispatching ambulances, cutting out the wasted hours that kill. It also demanded clarity on the state budget allocation for medical services, asserting that financial constraints cannot be an excuse for inadequate care. The bench has not yet assigned blame but warned it will fix accountability and grant compensation if the inquiry reveals negligence.
The state government has 15 days to submit an objective inquiry report into the newborn's death. The next hearing is fixed for October 1, where doctors from KGMU, SGPGI, and RMLIMS will appear via video conference to address the court's questions.