Setting up of the panel had been ordered by the Supreme Court last week during its hearing on the oxygen crisis in the country
New Delhi:
A 12-member National Task Force has been set up by the Supreme Court to assess availability and distribution of medical oxygen – on scientific, rational and equitable basis – across the country.
The task force will also suggest measures to ensure similarly rational and equitable availability of medicines needed to treat COVID-19, and provide inputs, based on members’ scientific and specialised knowledge, to meet others challenges to have been raised by the Covid pandemic.
Setting up of the task force had been ordered by the top court on Friday, when it called for a revamp of the centre’s allocation of oxygen to different states. The court said the centre failed to consider factors like ambulances, lower-level Covid care facilities and patients in home quarantine.
The task force is to be led by Dr Bhabatosh Biswas, the former Vice Chancellor of the West Bengal University of Health Sciences.
It will also include Dr Naresh Trehan, Chairperson and Managing Director of Gurgaon’s Medanta Hospital and Heart Institute, and leading doctors from Delhi’s Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Vellore’s Christian Medical College, Bengaluru’s Narayana Healthcare and Mumbai’s Fortis Hospital.