Health secretary told to submit all AIIMS documents

Petitioner Baskar from Madurai prayed that the multi-specialty hospital be set up in Madurai to benefit the people of the southern districts. There are five multi-specialty hospitals in Chennai and hence, people there has been getting quality treatment. But, the people in the southern districts lack such quality facilities for treatment. So, the Centre must establish the proposed AIIMS hospital in Madurai, he said. 

A similar petition was filed by KK Ramesh seeking the facility in Madurai and he also wanted the Union government to announce the place where the hospital would be set up. The Union government had submitted in its counter to the petition of Baskar that the state government should identify and decide the place where the proposed AIIMS hospital would come up. 

Any place with 200 acres of land with good electricity and water supply can be chosen for the hospital in Tamil Nadu for the facility announced by the Centre in 2014 Budget, the affidavit stated. When the petition was taken up for hearing on Thursday, Judges KK Sasidharan and GR Swaminathan directed the secretary of state Health Department to submit all the documents related to the setting up of an AIIMS by August 1. The secretary was instructed to appear before the court on August 7, if he fails to do so.

The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court on Thursday directed the state government to set up separate wards for swine flu affected patients in all the government district headquarters hospitals in four months. 

Anandraj, a health activist from Madurai in his public interest litigation, stated that in the last two months more than 1,200 people were affected by swine flu in the state and out of them nearly 15 people had died. The lab facility to detect swine flu is present only in very few medical college hospitals in the state. Due to this, people from the southern districts like Ramanathapuram, Sivaganga, Virudhunagar, Theni, Dindigul and Kanniyakumari had to go to Madurai or Tirunelveli GHs to get tested and treated for swine flu. The resulting delay in availing of treatment proves fatal in some cases, he said. Though swine flu medicines are available in most hospitals, there are no facilities in the laboratories to detect the disease from the blood samples in the district headquarters hospitals. Apart from that even the polymerised chain reaction kit, which is used for confirming swine flu, is also not present in the hospitals. Hence, the court should direct the government to set up separate wards to treat swine flu in all the government district headquarters hospitals, the petitioner prayed.

The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court on Thursday granted anticipatory bail to anti-nuclear activist SP Udayakumar in a case relating to Foreign Contribution and Regulation Act (FCRA).  Udayakumar, in his petition, stated that a report from Union Home Ministry was sent to Crime Branch Police at Chennai and in the complaint, it was stated that a trust run by him, named ‘Saccer’ at Nagercoil, had received foreign funds to the tune of Rs 2.32 lakh in June 2008 in the State Bank Account.  However, the cops attached to CID at Kanniyakumari had booked a case against him for protesting against Koodankulam nuclear reactors and had even arrested him once in 2012. The case was not registered under FCRA of 2010. But, now the police are trying to arrest him based on the complaint sent to them in 2012. Hence, the court should grant anticipatory bail, he argued.

A petition had been filed at the Madurai Bench of Madras HC to conduct manjuvirattu throughout the year. The court on Thursday sent notice to the secretaries of Environment and Forest Department and Law Department and posted the case to August 3. Petitioner Avudayappan from Sivaganga had stated that for several centuries manjuvirattu had been conducted in the state and it had increased social harmony. However, when he had approached the Sivaganga Collector to get permission to conduct an event on July 7, the Collector deined permission. Hence, the words from January to May should be removed from the amendment and permission should be given to conduct the sport, the petitioner prayed.