The High Court yesterday directed the government to take necessary steps for providing emergency medical services to all critically injured persons at the government hospitals and private clinics across the country.

In response to a writ petition, the HC ordered the government to submit a report on the progress in ensuring emergency medical services to accident victims under the National Road Safety Strategic Action Plan 2014-2016 to it in three months.

The court also asked secretaries to the ministries of health, and road, transport and bridges to propose guidelines for management of such emergency services and for measures to create public awareness of such services through print and electronic media, petitioners' lawyer Sara Hossain and Deputy Attorney General Motaher  Hossain Sazu told The Daily Star.

The HC also issued a rule asking the authorities concerned to explain in four weeks why failure to ensure such emergency medical services to critically injured persons by the existing hospitals and clinics should not be declared illegal.

 The HC bench of Justice Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury and Md Iqbal Kabir came up with the order and the rule after hearing the petition filed by Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust and Saif Kamal, a social entrepreneur who is the founder of Toru.

Kamal had tried to ensure treatment from three private hospitals for a bus driver's helper Arif who was killed in a road accident after falling from the bus on the Airport Road near Banani in the capital last month.

They filed the petition based on a report in The Daily Star on January 24 under a headline "Hearts of stone" that narrated how the three private hospitals had refused to provide treatment to Arif before his death.

Secretaries to the ministries of health and road transport and bridges, the director general of the directorate of health services and the Bangladesh Medical and Dental Council have been made respondents to the rule.