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An Indian-origin husband-wife doctor couple have launched judicial review proceedings up against the UK government over what we say is a refusal to handle safety issues around personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare and doctors workers all through the coronavirus pandemic.
Dr Nishant Joshi and his awesome pregnant wife, Dr Meenal Viz, had initiated the court action in April which includes a pre-action letter seeking answers within the UK’s Department of Health and Social Public and Care Health England. They decided to push ahead with the case in your High Court inside london on Wednesday for the reason that feel they can be “no longer happy to wait”.
“We don’t need to be carrying this out. We didn’t anticipate carrying this out. We’re doctors in a very pandemic. We should give attention to saving stitching and lives this country back together,” the pair said in any statement.
“But we now have been pushed into taking action through government’s refusal to deal with the difficulties now we have raised,” they said.
Their law office, Bindmans, said the judicial review challenge highlights the “mismatch” within the government’s assistance with PPE as well as the guidance set out by your World Health Organisation (WHO), including in respect of when “full” PPE becomes necessary, in addition to with regards to the reuse and reprocessing of PPE – which includes items such surgical gowns, face visors and gloves. The doctors’ case claims the fact that government’s guidance also fails properly to warn healthcare and social care workers of this risks they face with various stages of PPE and also their legal rights to refuse to function when inadequate PPE can be purchased.
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, although “As frontline doctors, Dr Viz and Dr Joshi understand the operational pressures faced by government better than most.
“Accordingly, we have now today [Wednesday] filed judicial review proceedings trying to challenge that guidance that has a view to bringing into line with WHO guidance along with human rights legislation. Also to any ‘second spike’ or future pandemic,” he said, though this is important not just in the current crisis.
The pair highlight a disproportionate selection of the COVID-19 victims are from ethnic minority backgrounds, and therefore the challenge also raises the government’s failure properly to bear in mind the effect on minority, black and Asian ethnic (BAME) health and social care workers over the state-funded National Health Service (NHS). “The government have also refused enabling Dr Viz and Dr Joshi to publish their initial responses on the pre-action correspondence in order that others can assess the adequacy of their total technique to PPE. Our clients will push in virtually any proceedings to be certain such documents are manufactured 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 been leading protests outside Downing Street and last month she and her colleagues observed a 237-second silence – one second for any healthcare worker who died in the range of duty with this pandemic throughout the uk.
The Department of Health said it cannot discuss “ongoing legal proceedings” but has up until recently stressed that safety factors have been completely thought about with their guidance. PTI AK PMS RS
