Chattisgarh High Court Calls For State's Response On Media Reports Flagging “Pathetic Situation” At AIIMS Raipur, Other Govt Hospitals

The Court's intervention was triggered by multiple news reports, including one from a Hindi daily which detailed how patients at AIIMS, Raipur had to wait for nearly 48 hours after registration to consult a doctor.

Expressing dismay, a Division Bench of Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Bibhu Datta Guru observed,

“Majority of population of the State does not have the financial capacity to afford expensive treatment in private hospitals and their health services mainly depend upon the Government Hospitals, however, the patients are facing lot of difficulties right from the time of registration till meeting of the Doctor. The situation in the State's biggest hospital AIIMS, Raipur, is very pathetic as after registration of a patient, it took almost 48 hours to reach the Doctor. There are big queue and much time of the patients are being wasted waiting for their turn. After checkups, the surgeries are being done after four months and as such, the patients are suffering unnecessarily apart from their own ailments. For getting X-ray done, the patients are required to wait for three long hours.”

The Court referred to another news item which revealed that pregnancy kits which give faulty results and inferior quality surgical items and medicines were being distributed despite the company which supplied the defective materials being directed not to supply any further materials. The report further highlighted that some life saving drugs which were found to be of substandard quality and which failed in laboratory tests were also kept in circulation. In this regard, the Division Bench observed,

“The aforesaid news portrays a very horrific situation and if the aforesaid news is correct, the fate of the patients can be very well understood. It raises a serious question on the functioning of the Health Department of the State as well as the CGMSC.”

The Court took note of another news report concerning a Community Health Centre of Bilaspur where, it was reported that despite the presence of 15 doctors on record, no doctor was present till 11:15 a.m. and more than 250 patients waited in queue since morning, while critical machines like the X-ray unit remained unused for over a year. Additionally, a 'Hamar Lab', on which different types of tests could be conducted and reports could be obtained in minutes, remained largely non-functional due to lack of reagent supplies from Chhattisgarh Medical Services Corporation (CGMSC).

Taking note of these disturbing lapses in public healthcare, the Court directed the Secretary, Health Department, Government of Chhattisgarh, to file personal affidavit with respect to the above news reports.

The matter is now listed on 12th August, 2025.

Case Details:

Case Number: WPPIL No. 27 of 2024

Case Title: In the Matter of Suo Moto Public Interest Litigation v. The State Of Chhattisgarh & Others

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