[COVID-19 Pandemic] Jharkhand HC asks State to respond on whether Health Professionals are given adequate Personal Protective Equipment

The Jharkhand High Court has asked the State Government to respond on a number of queries concerning measures taken to combat the Coronavirus pandemic, including whether adequate Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) kits have been provided for doctors and supporting staffs dealing with COVID-19 patients..In this regard, a Division Bench comprising of Chief Justice Ravi Ranjan and Justice Sujit Narayan Prasad has posed the following, among other, queries:.Whether the State Government has any positive figure regarding the number of persons returned or coming from outside to the State of Jharkhand during the period of lockdown or even one week prior to that including foreign nationals? Whether such persons have been screened properly or not? How many people have been quarantined at quarantine centres and at their respective homes respectively ?How many doctors and support staffs have been engaged for taking care of quarantined persons in the State of Jharkhand ?How many Personal Protective Equipments have already been supplied and how many are available in excess ?How many of the screened persons have been found positive with the Coronavirus?How many Testing Kits are available with the State Government and further, how many of them have already been supplied to the various centres of the State?How many ventilators are available in the State of Jharkhand and how many would be required to cater the present crisis?Whether sufficient security measures have been undertaken by the State so that the quarantined persons do not come in the contact with the persons of the locality?.This apart, the Court also enquired whether basic amenities such as medical equipment, medicines and food etc. were being provided to the quarantined persons in quarantine centres as well as homes..The Court was dealing a letter written by Advocate Indrajit Sinha highlighting that adequate number of PPEs were not being provided to Doctors and medical staff despite various requests. On that point, the Court observed, ."If such is the situation then this is a serious problem. This requires to be dealt with by the Government.Jharkhand High Court.The Court, however, took on record the submission made by the Advocate General Rajiv Ranjan that sufficient numbers of PPE kits were being provided. .The Court was told that while there was a initially a dearth in the availability of PPEs, there are now over 1,000 kits. Within a week, there would be enough PPE kits to cater to the needs of the health professionals, the Advocate General submitted. .All the same, the Court has now directed for a written statement to be be filed by the State Government on the queries made by the Court. The matter has been posted for to be taken up next on April 7. .[Read order here]