An Indian-origin husband-wife doctor couple have launched judicial review proceedings versus the UK government over exactly what they say really is a refusal to handle safety issues around personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare and doctors workers during the coronavirus pandemic.
Dr Nishant Joshi with his fantastic pregnant wife, Dr Meenal Viz, had initiated the court action in April employing a pre-action letter seeking answers out of the UK’s Department of Social and Health Care and Public Health England. They decided to push ahead while using the case inside High Court inside london on Wednesday given that they feel they will be “no longer ready to wait”.
“We don’t wish to be repeating this. We didn’t consider accomplishing this. We’re doctors during a pandemic. We want to give full attention to saving stitching and lives this country back together,” the couple said at a statement.
“But now we have been pushed into taking action through the government’s refusal to address the difficulties we have raised,” they said.
Their law office, Bindmans, said the judicial review challenge highlights the “mismatch” between your government’s guidance on PPE along with the guidance lay out by way of the World Health Organisation (WHO), including in respect of when “full” PPE is essential, together with with respect to the reuse and reprocessing of PPE – such as items such surgical gowns, face visors and gloves. The doctors’ case claims of the fact that government’s guidance also fails properly to warn healthcare and social care workers on the risks they face with various amount of PPE along with legal rights to refuse to perform when inadequate PPE is accessible.
“As frontline doctors, Dr Viz and Dr Joshi understand the operational pressures faced by government better than most, but they, along with all other health and social care workers, remain entitled to lawful and transparent guidance on the use of PPE and the risks they are facing on the frontline of responding to this national crisis,” said Jamie Potter, Partner at Bindmans LLP and solicitor for Dr Viz and Dr Joshi.
“Accordingly, we now have today [Wednesday] filed judicial review proceedings desiring to challenge that guidance that has a view to bringing into line with WHO guidance and also human rights legislation. Also to any ‘second spike’ or future pandemic,” he said, though this is important not just in the current crisis.
The couple highlight that your chosen disproportionate variety of the COVID-19 victims come from ethnic minority backgrounds, plus the challenge also raises the government’s failure properly to look at the affect on black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) health and social care workers around the state-funded National Health Service (NHS). “The government have also refused to permit Dr Viz and Dr Joshi to publish their initial responses towards the pre-action correspondence to make certain that others can look at the adequacy of these strategy to PPE. Our clients will push in virtually any proceedings ensuring such documents are designed public,” their law firm said.
The couple’s online crowdfunding initiative for any legal case has raised over 61,000 pounds in pledges. Viz, that is eight months pregnant, has additionally been leading protests outside Downing Street and recently she and her colleagues observed a 237-second silence – one second for almost every healthcare worker who died inside the kind of duty on this pandemic in england.
The Department of Health said it cannot discuss “ongoing legal proceedings” but has not that long ago stressed that safety factors are considered with its guidance. PTI AK PMS RS
