Medical

The Bhopal Gas Tragedy – Maybe something good will come out of all this, all the political discussion

The Bhopal Gas Tragedy has been one of the worst incidents in the history of India, right up there with the unpunished anti-Sikh riots of 1984, and the Gujarat anti-Muslim riots of 2002. The gas attack, in the dead night of early December 1984, had a personal connection for me. My dad had been in Bhopal for a official visit, just leaving a day before; a close call for us, but not for the thousands who perished from the effects of the gas in the first few days after the tragedy. This is a tragedy that has affected many hundreds of thousands as well, those who did not immediately suffer a fatality in the aftermath of the tragedy, but who were affected due to the effects of the gas, and suffered a series of health problems that have lasted till this day, and who will continue to suffer the effects for long periods after. And yet, they can be called a forgotten generation. After all, were it not for the recent court case that awarded a measly 2 year punishment to many office bearers of the company at the time of the gas attack, who would have said a word about a tragedy that struck 26 years back ? In fact, just the fact that it took 26 years for the judicial process to grind to a decision about criminal culpabilities is itself a grotesque tragedy.
One benefit of the recent controversy has been a discussion about what are the rightful next steps to take for resolving the tragedy. For long, the factory (still present, with whatever contaminant still keeps on seeping into the soil) remains on the ground, and there had been no discussion on how to clean up the place (and one of the major steps in any industrial disaster is the clean up process of an industrial disaster); the recent discussion has been about how to setup a process to clean up the disaster area (even though there are disputes about whether it will be the central Government or the state Government that will be responsible for the cleanup process). There is also a realization that the compensation given earlier was inadequate, but the current debate overall the proposed new compensation policy is also riven by dispute, and there is a worry that there will be enough red-tape in the entire process that a number of people affected by the tragedy will continue to not get the required compensation.
Read more…

Government claims that it will investigate seats for money scam

Image the situation; a private college in a state run by a political party; the college is owned by a member of the same political party who is now also a central minister of the Government of India. The same college demands money for admitting students (and not some small sum, but the sum of Rs. 20 lakhs). A media team plans a sting and shows the administrative officer of one of the colleges (the college is Shree Balaji Medical College owned by Union minister of state for information and broadcasting S Jagathrakshakan); in the other college, the registrar asks for Rs. 40 lakhs for students to be allowed admission into the medical college.
This seems perfectly realistic, inspite of Supreme Court judgments and Government policy, capitation based admission is a reality which the Government and the education ministry is perfectly fine to let happen. After all, for Governments that are able to sniff out the movements of opposition parties through their internal intelligence agencies, how hard would it be to find out which all colleges are charging capitation fees ? But when you consider that colleges are owned by politicians and important people, there is no effort that is going to happen to stop such practices from happening.

Read more…

Consumer: Apollo fined Rs. 5 lakh over a man’s death

Apollo Hospitals is one of the providers of premium medical care, charging top rates for their services and in turn providing excellent medical services. This is an expectation that people have when they are admitted to the hospital, so when the hospital screws up somewhere in this care and does harm to the patient, there is a lot of shock. And with an increasing tendency for people to file consumer forum issues when they believe that they have not been treated well, it is becoming more common for even the better hospitals to be pulled up when their services are found wanting (link to article):

The state consumer commission has directed Apollo Hospital to pay Rs 5 lakh compensation to the kin of a patient, who died in the hospital moments after he was brought in. In this case, 31-year-old Pradeep Kumar Saini, a father of two minor kids, was admitted in Apollo Hospital on June 16, 2003 in a drowsy state. After examination, it was found that he had no medical history and his condition was stable. In fact, the family was told that he was to be discharged shortly. At no stage was it indicated that the condition of the patient was deteriorating.

Read more…