India News | Treatment Delayed as Hospitals Fill Up Patient Data on Medicine Portal Before Drugs Released:HC Told
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. The Delhi High Court was on Thursday informed that hospitals were being asked to fill up patient data like Aadhaar in the portal created for keeping track of distribution of Remdesivir before release of the medicine and this was leading to delay in receiving the drug and administering it to patients.
New Delhi, May 6 (PTI) The Delhi High Court was on Thursday informed that hospitals were being asked to fill up patient data like Aadhaar in the portal created for keeping track of distribution of Remdesivir before release of the medicine and this was leading to delay in receiving the drug and administering it to patients.
"Distribution of drugs has to be decentralised," suggested Senior advocate Rajshekhar Rao, who is assisting the court as amicus curiae, in dealing with the issues related to COVID-19.
He said that the hospitals should be given the option to update the patient data later.
Taking note of his submissions, the court was of the view that the patient verification process can be done with other documents, including RTPCR reports, and not necessarily Aadhaar only.
It also said that when an RTPCR report is uploaded on the portal it should do away with the requirement for Aadhaar which would be already available with ICMR when it updates the test results.
Rao told a bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Palli that the stock can be released to the hospitals on a pro rata basis keeping in view their usage in the past without waiting for updation of the patient data and its subsequent verification to release the medicine.
"These are the bottlenecks in the system," he said and added that "movement of medication needs to be faster".
He also told the court that the requisite system should be in place in the next few days and thereafter, such things would be streamlined.
The bench, agreeing with the suggestions of the amicus, further said the doctors should have the medicine in stock with them and clearance for the same can come later.
The court said it cannot be that doctors have to fill up all the details and then wait for the drug to arrive.
It also said that the portal should not be confined to Remdesivir alone and should also include details of Tocilizumab, another drug used in treatment of COVID-19 and which is also in short supply presently.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)