| Published on 24-09-2008 In General |
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| The tragic tale of the Bhopal Gas victims: A Dying hospital now |
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Written by
N.D.Sharma |
A fine institution set up to provide specialised medical care to the victims of the 1984 Union Carbide MiC gas leak disaster is facing closure because of the greed of its managers. Nearly 300 employees (including specialists) out of a total staff of 650 of the Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Centre (BMHRC) have resigned over a couple of years in protest against the cavalier attitude of the management. The process to wind up the projects meant for medical and economic rehabilitation of the gas victims was started during the BJP regime of Sunderlal Patwa (1990-92), continued through the Congress regime of Digvijay Singh and is climaxing in the present BJP rule.
The BMHRC was constructed by the Union Carbide in (partial) compliance of a 1991 Supreme Court directive which had enjoined upon the US multinational to establish a "full-fledged hospital of at least 500-bed strength with the best of equipment for treatment of MiC related afflictions…We hope and trust that UCL (Union Carbide Limited) and UCIL (Union Carbide India Limited) will not be found wanting in this behalf…The State of Madhya Pradesh shall provide suitable land free of cost. The allocation of the land shall be made within two months and the hospital shall be constructed, equipped and made functional within 18 months".
The gas victims were to be treated without any charge for eight years (from the date of the commissioning of the hospital). The direction for the establishment of the hospital was issued, in fact, in lieu of revoking the criminal liability of the Union Carbide.
The Union Carbide established for this purpose the Bhopal Hospital Trust (BHT) in February 1992 in England with just US $1000 as its contribution. Former Attorney of the UK, Sir Ian Percival, was made the sole trustee. The rest of the BHT funds came from the sale of the Union Carbide's Indian shares that were confiscated by the Bhopal District Court after proclaiming the company absconder in the criminal cases pending against it. The Bhopal District Court maintained that the money for the (hospital) fund should come from the company's own coffers and that the shares of the Indian subsidiary (of the Union Carbide) would remain attached until the accused appeared in court. The sale was, however, permitted by the Supreme Court by reversing the Bhopal District Court order. In August 1998 the BHT was Indianised to form the Bhopal Memorial Hospital Trust (BMHT). Following the death of Sir Ian Percival, former Supreme Court Chief Justice A.M.Ahmadi was made the chairperson of BMHT.
(Sir Ian died in April 1998 and left behind financial accounts of the BHT showing that he spent US $2.5 million on travel, refurbishing his London office and other expenses).
The hospital was commissioned only about a decade later (instead of 18 months) and even then it had only 260 beds (instead of 500). While the hospital was free to charge usual fees to other patients, it was supposed to provide treatment free of cost to the gas victims. It came, therefore, as a great irritant to the gas victims when the hospital started concentrating on non-gas-affected paying patients and treating the gas affected people in a cavalier manner, often outrightly refusing to treat them.
As only those of the gas victims who were suffering from serious complications approached it, they were asked to cough up hefty sums. The Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan (BGPMUS), an NGO working for the gas victims, had to often knock on the doors of the Supreme Court to seek relief to the victims. It was on a petition of the BGPMUS that the Supreme Court had issued directions for the establishment of the hospital in October 1991.
About three years ago the hospital employees (including the doctors and technicians) asked for a wage revision in line with the revisions in similar institutions elsewhere and the management promised to consider it. Then the management led by former Supreme Court Chief Justice Ahmadi started floating the idea that a wage revision for the staff might not be possible till the hospital continued to provide free medical care to the gas victims. At one stage, he had even decided to discontinue free medical treatment of the victims but his design was foiled by the Supreme Court intervention. An adamant attitude of the management had once sent the entire staff on strike, leading to an ugly situation for the critically ill then undergoing treatment at the hospital or needing an operation urgently. The interest taken by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, human resource development minister Arjun Singh and chemicals and fertilisers minister Ramvilas Paswan in the hospital affairs averted the crisis, for the time being.
As the management refused to budge from its stand, the doctors and others started resigning. Today the strength has depleted to nearly half and all major departments, like those of cardiology, pulmonary diseases, neurology, urology, gastro-medicine, are being managed by one specialist each without any assisting staff. The management argues that it does not have the finances to pay the revised wages to the staff. The organisations working among the gas victims, on the other hand, feel the crisis is entirely management-created to get the Supreme Court nod to discontinue free treatment of the gas victims.
The hospital management claims that it needs Rs 30 crore to Rs 35 crore per year to run the full-fledged hospital. It started with a corpus of Rs 290 crore released by the Supreme Court out of the Union Carbide fund kept with the apex court. The original corpus, along with Rs 37 crore released by the apex court towards the close of 2006, has swelled to Rs 430 crore. The victims' organisations feel that only the interest accruing from this fund should itself be enough to take care of the annual expenditure of the hospital. Besides, the hospital earns Rs five crore upwards from non-victim patients for providing them specialised treatments.
The Supreme Court had constituted two committees to oversee the working of the hospitals and dispensaries set up for the gas victims, one to advise on the treatment and the other to monitor the treatment being provided to the victims. The BMHRC was, however, kept out of the purview of the two committees. The victims' organisations feel that former CJI Ahmadi may have used his influence when the order was passed at the apex court. Whatever may be the reason, the victims of gas tragedy who continue to suffer, are on the verge of becoming victims twice over. |
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