In response to a writ petition, the court ordered the government to submit a report on the progress of ensuring emergency medical services for traffic accident victims under the National Road Safety Strategic Action Plan 2014-2016 in three months.
Secretaries to the ministries of health, and road, transport and bridges were also directed to propose guidelines for the operation and management of emergency medical services, including the operation of an emergency reporting number, and to take measures to create public awareness of such services by way of dissemination through the press and electronic media, petitioners’ lawyer Sara Hossain and Deputy Attorney General Motaher Hossain Sazu told The Daily Star.
ALSO READ: Hearts of stone
The HC also issued a rule asking the government authorities concerned to explain in four weeks as to why the failure to ensure the provision by existing hospitals and clinics, whether governmental or private, of emergency medical services to critically injured persons should not be declared to illegal.
The HC bench of Justice Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury and Md Iqbal Kabir came up with the order rule after holding hearing on a writ petition filed seeking its orders on the government to ensure emergency medical services by hospitals, clinics and doctors across the country.
The petition was filed by Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust and Syed Saifuddin Kamal, a social entrepreneur, who as a ‘good samaritan’ had tried to ensure emergency medical services from local hospitals for a young man called Arif, a bus helper, who fell from a bus and was killed when the bus ran over him on the Airport Road near Banani Dhaka in last month.
They filed the petition based on a report published on The Daily Star on January 24 under a headline “Hearts of stone” that narrated how three prominent private hospitals in Dhaka have refused to provide with emergency medical service to critically injured Arif.
Secretaries to the ministries of health, road transport and bridges, director general of directorate of health services, the inspector general of police and the Bangladesh medical and dental council have been made respondents to the rule.
