LUCKNOW, April 23 -- The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court has directed the Uttar Pradesh government to file an affidavit with details of the medical facilities, including ventilators, being provided in various medical colleges, especially the recently opened ones, and hospitals in all the districts of Uttar Pradesh. The court also asked how far these facilities meet the local needs of patients. It further said the primary allocation of the state government's resources should be for health. The court also asked the state to disclose whether there is any regulatory mechanism for the functioning of private medical hospitals and clinics. The order was passed by a division bench of Justice Rajan Roy and Justice Manjive Shukla on April 22 in response to a public interest litigation (PIL) petition filed by the NGO 'We the People' in 2016 through its general secretary Prince Lenin. The PIL sought details of ventilators required in all government hospitals and medical universities in Lucknow. The petitioner also raised other treatment related issues. The court directed to implead the Union of India through secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, New Delhi, as an opposite party. It also directed that a notice be served on SB Pandey, deputy solicitor general of India, to file a response with regard to the regulation of private medical hospitals and the need for any statute unless already available. The court further directed the state government to disclose how many specialised hospitals, such as super speciality hospitals on the lines of the Ram Manohar Lohia Institute of Medical Sciences and the Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences in Lucknow, have been opened or are proposed to be opened in other districts so that the patients are not compelled to rush to Lucknow. "Why not decentralise this mechanism so that such hospitals are available in all the regions, if not in all districts, and are easily accessible to the residents of the adjoining districts," the court said. The court also asked how many skilled personnel have been recruited in the past five years for operating ventilators. The court also said the question of adequacy of salary being paid to the government doctors needed to be considered. "The services rendered by the doctors is much more important than the services being rendered by other functionaries in the bureaucracy for obvious reasons as it is related to the very sustenance of a citizen and Right to Life," the court observed. "The endeavour should be to provide sufficient number of ventilators so that nobody suffers fatally on account of non provision of ventilators. The data does not dwell on this aspect, in fact, it appears that there is no mechanism in the State to ascertain as to what was the demand of ventilators in a particular hospital on a given day and how many ventilators were available for being provided. Unless that exercise is done, these data would be meaningless," the court said. "Whatever the resources of the state government, the primary allocation should be for health as it is a basic need for the very survival of a person," the court said. "...The affidavit to be filed in this regard shall also disclose the percentage of the budget allocated for medical facilities in various hospitals throughout the state." the court directed. The court directed to list the case on May 25 among the top 10 cases of the day. MANOJ KUMAR SINGH...