The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the government to provide foolproof police security to doctors and paramedical staff and provide them with adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) as it took a grim view of incidents of violence against health services personnel engaged in the battle against the pandemic.

The directives came on a petition filed by a medical practitioner from Mumbai, Jerryl Banait, who was represented by senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi.

The bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan and Ravindra Bhat passed the directives even as solicitor-general Tushar Mehta assured the court that the government would give necessary directives to ensure there were no salary cuts for doctors and paramedical staff in government or private hospitals.

The petitioner had complained that several hospitals were deducting salaries of doctors and staff to acquire PPEs and other medical equipment.

The court referred to an incident that happened on April 2 in Indore where doctors and other medical staff were attacked when they had gone to screen certain persons for Covid-19.

“Certain other incidents have also been reported from other parts of the country including an incident at Ghaziabad where certain patients misbehaved with medical staff, which was reported to the police also. The petitioner has brought on record details of such incidents…

“It is the duty of the State and the police administration to provide necessary security at all places where patients who have been diagnosed coronavirus positive or who have been quarantined are housed. The police security be also provided to doctors and medical staff when they visit places for screening the people to find out the symptoms of the disease,” the bench said.

On protective gear for health services personnel, the court ordered the authorities to ensure availability of appropriate Personal Protective Equipment, including sterile medical/Nitrile gloves, medical masks, goggles, face shield, respirators (i.e. N-95 Respirator Mask or Triple Layer Medical Mask or equivalent), shoe covers, head covers and coveralls/gowns to all health workers including doctors, nurses, ward boys, other medical and paramedical professionals actively attending to Covid-19 patients.

The court also recorded an undertaking from Mehta that salaries of doctors and paramedical staff would not be cut either in government or private hospitals.