CUTTACK: Even as the major hospitals and health institutions in the Millennium City have hogged the headlines for all the wrong reasons like power failure and snapping water supply in the last couple of days, the Orissa High Court has decided to convene a special bench on Monday to look into the issue.
The division bench comprising Justices BP Das and MM Das, which is hearing the Cuttack PIL on civic issues, today took serious note of the power failure in the Sardar Vallavbhai Patel Post Graduate Institute of Paediatrics or Sishu Bhawan on May 12 and water supply cut-off in the SCB Medical College and Hospital yesterday.
The bench has directed the executive engineers of the PHD, GED and CESU to appear in person to explain the causes of such serious disruptions and what steps are being taken to prevent such incidents in future.
The court decided to hold a special bench as members of the bar, the Advocate’s Committee and Amicus Curie P.R. Das had raised concern over the two incidents.
When the State Government announced that there would be no load shedding or disruption in water supply in summer, specifically in view of the heatwave conditions, the experiences in the past few days were to the contrary.
Patients in both the important health institutions suffered immensely as the Sishu Bhawan underwent a complete blackout for over nine hours from Monday night following power failure and the SCB Medical College went without water on Thursday morning. The problems of the patients and attendants notwithstanding, important functions like surgeries were withheld for several hours.