Karnataka HC Staff Dies Of COVID Without Getting RT-PCR Result; High Court Directs Action Against Lab

A division bench of Chief Justice Abhay Oka and Justice Aravind Kumar talked about the plight of a deceased employee of the High Court, who had undertaken a test on May 10 and he died on May 12, till then he was not communicated the test results.

The court orally said, "This is an eyeopener. This is how the system is working. The man was not communicated till yesterday night about him being tested positive. Therefore no treatment was given to him."

The court had on April 22 directed the state government to instruct all laboratories to make available the test results within 24-hours. It had even asked the state government to consider taking action against those labs which are not following the directions.

Today the bench in its order said "The report shows that on May 10, at 11.06.53 hrs swab test was collected by the lab of Sir CV Raman General hospital. The lab received the swab sample after 22 hours. It appears that the sample was tested on May 11 and the result was reported at 13.43 hrs on May 11. The Registry has confirmed that till time of the death the result of the test was not communicated to him". The patient had died on May 12.

The court opined "There is a direction of this court that test results should be informed to the patient in 24-hours from taking a swab test. We are not taking up the matter only because the person concerned is an employee of this court. We are worried about implementation of the order of this court and the lives of the citizens."

Accordingly it directed "We direct the state government to initiate action against the said lab which is responsible for this lapse and place on record the action taken report on the next date. We direct the state government to issue a direction to all laboratories to follow the directions issued by the court to avoid any such instances".