The Delhi High Court on January 30 sought the response of the Delhi government and three private hospitals here on a plea seeking directions to frame binding critical care guidelines for Delhi government-run and private hospitals.

The court also asked five doctors of the three private hospitals to file their replies to the petition filed by a woman, whose mother had died of cardiac arrest due to alleged medical negligence. Justice Vibhu Bakhru listed the matter for further hearing on April 23. The Delhi government, which was asked by the court to file its response to the petition earlier also, was granted more time to submit its reply.

The court was hearing the plea filed by the woman, a neuroscientist in the US, who has prayed for directions to provide basic and advanced critical life support cardiopulmonary resuscitation training to all the doctors and nurses under the Delhi government's jurisdiction. The court had earlier stressed the dire need for proper critical care training to paramedics.

The woman, in her petition filed through advocate Jai Dehadrai, has highlighted the "criminal neglect" suffered by her mother "at the hands of two hospitals and five doctors, who blatantly refused to admit or treat her while she laid helplessly dying in her car". The victim had died on February 9, 2017 after she was refused entry into two private hospitals in east Delhi.

Dehadrai had said the woman was not seeking any compensation from the hospitals but wanted directions for framing guidelines for hospitals. The plea has also sought a direction to the Delhi government and the Directorate General of Health Services to permanently shut down the two hospitals and cancel the medical licence and permission granted to them, alleging that they were "nothing more than death traps".

It has also sought cancellation of licences and degrees of the five doctors, who were allegedly directly responsible for causing the death of the victim by denying her treatment. "Direct the Government of NCT of Delhi and the Directorate General of Health Services to draft binding medical guidelines for all private and government hospitals in Delhi to ensure admission of dying/critical patients brought in an emergency situation and specifically, the victims of cardiac arrest.

"Set up a commission of inquiry under the stewardship of a retired high court judge to investigate and ascertain the quality of emergency healthcare facilities provided in the National Capital Region of Delhi," the plea says.

It adds that when the woman was taken to the first hospital, the doctor there, who had an MBBS degree, neither attended to the emergency situation nor provided any treatment and refused her admission. The doctor had also asked the attendant to take the victim to another hospital, the plea says.