MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Monday sought a report from the health secretary on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition filed to appoint sufficient dialysis technicians on permanent basis in government hospitals across the state.
The litigant, C Anand Raj of Madurai, stated in his petition that as per an RTI report received by him in 2017, there were only seven permanent dialysis technician posts across all the government hospitals in state. When he filed a PIL in that regard the same year, the court had urged the government to take necessary action to appoint qualified dialysis technicians in all government hospitals. However, four years later, only 160 technicians were recruited and that too on a temporary basis, Raj claimed.
In the meantime, the number of dialysis procedures conducted in government hospitals in the state has tripled and the lack of technicians has seriously affected the patients, he added. Citing that at present there are 2,050 dialysis machines at the government hospitals in the state and there should be one technician for every three machines, Raj claimed that the actual number of technicians available should be 683 now and sought the above direction.
When a bench comprising Justices R Subramanian and L Victoria Gowri heard the petition, the government counsel informed that a proposal had been sent to appoint more than 600 technicians. Recording this, the judges directed the health secretary to file a report on the time required to fill the said posts and adjourned the case to October 28.
The bench also called for a report from the government on a separate PIL filed by Raj’s wife Veronica Mary seeking direction for providing adequate infrastructure and air conditioning for storing medicines in the government medical college hospitals in Madurai, Thanjavur, Tirunelveli and Tiruchy.