Tamil Nadu: Plea flags cardiac device shortage at Rajaji hospital

MADURAI: A law college student has approached the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court seeking urgent intervention to address alleged shortages of critical cardiac-care equipment and manpower at Government Rajaji Hospital, Madurai, contending that denial or delay of timely medical treatment in government hospitals violates the right to life guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.

A 19-year-old student, V Kathir of Madurai, pursuing his second year of law at the School of Law, Christ University, Bengaluru, filed the petition before a Division Bench comprising Justices CV Karthikeyan and Sathikvel.

The petitioner submitted that the Head of the Department of Cardiology, GRH, through a letter dated July 2026, had submitted to the Director of Medical Education and Research, Chennai, a detailed requirement covering 32 categories of equipment described as necessary for the life-saving, immediate, essential and critical management of patients under the department's care.

For instance, the department presently has only 24 ICU cots against a documented requirement of 56 and only 16 multipara monitors with invasive BP against a requirement of 34. This means that even when a patient survives an acute cardiac event, the department may lack adequate monitored critical-care bed capacity to safely observe the patient during the subsequent 24 to 72 hours, when cardiogenic complications may recur, he submitted.

The Human Resources (HR) requirement statement also shows that the department has only eight faculty members against a proposed requirement of 18 and lacks adequate numbers of dedicated Cath Lab, ECG, Echo and EP technicians, he pointed out.

The petitioner further submitted that the issue was not new and that the department had flagged a similar shortage as early as April 2022.

According to records maintained by the department for the period from June 2025 to May 2026, it handled 1,19,924 out-patients, 4,086 in-patients, 1,13,997 ECGs and 77,263 echocardiograms, he said.

He therefore sought the court's intervention to direct the authorities to address the shortage of critical equipment and manpower in the Cardiology Department.

The court took note of the matter and adjourned the case for four weeks.