Elderly who filed plea seeking allotment of bed for COVID-19 treatment dies before hearing in Delhi HC

By Sushil Batra
New Delhi [India], June 5 : The Delhi High Court has listed to hear a matter on Friday where a COVID-19 positive patient has sought direction to authorities regarding his accommodation in a hospital with ventilator facility but died on Thursday before the hearing.
An 80-year-old senior citizen, who was a COVID-19 positive resident of Delhi, died because he could not get a bed in hospital at the right time. He had approached Rajiv Gandhi Hospital, AIIMS, MAX Hospital at Patparganj, Gangaram Hospital and Apollo Hospital but all of them refused to admit him stating that they have no vacancy, the plea alleged.
The plea was moved on June 2 for the direction to the respondents to immediately arrange to accommodate petitioner in a government hospital with ventilator facility and to provide free medical treatment to him under the scheme of BPL (below poverty line), in the interest of justice.
According to the plea, the petitioner fell ill on May 25 and he was taken to a private hospital in East Delhi. It alleged that due to the staff's negligence of the said hospital, the petitioner got infected with coronavirus.
The plea further said that after putting him on a ventilator, the hospital put pressure on petitioner's son to shift the petitioner to another institution, stating that it was not well equipped to treat coronavirus patients.
Advocate RPS Bhatti confirmed to ANI that the petition is now listed for Friday but it will get infructuous since the patient already died the previous day.