Goa High Court on Medical Oxygen Availability

PANAJI: The Goa Bench of the Bombay high court on Wednesday said the availability of medical oxygen for Covid-19 patients at the Goa Medical College and Hospital was grim, and asked the state government to take corrective steps.

It was hearing PILs filed by various entities (individuals and organizations). The bench comprising Justices Nitin W Sambre and M S Sonak said the state government has to ensure that the GMCH is supplied with the required amount of medical oxygen.

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"The situation of oxygen at Goa Medical College is quite grim. We have long passed the stage of determining whether patients are suffering from the lack of oxygen or not," the court observed.

Asserting that oxygen supply should be made available to the patients in GMCH, the judges said that the right to life is a fundamental one guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution. "There is, therefore, a corresponding duty cast on the state to ensure that this life is not extinguished on account of inability on the part of the state to supply oxygen to these unfortunate victims of the pandemic," the court said.

The state officials repeatedly assured us that there was sufficient oxygen available but the problem was of logistics of the supply chain, it said. "At this stage, we do not wish to go into the projections of oxygen requirement made by the under secretary on one hand and the dean on the other, though, prima facie we are inclined to go by the projections of the dean who is actually functioning from the GMC," the bench said.

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