Finalise plan to digitise medical records of Bhopal gas survivors: MP high court
JABALPUR: The Madhya Pradesh high court has ordered the central and state government to hold a meeting with the Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Centre to hold a meeting within a week to finalise an action plan to digitise medical records of the 1984 gas tragedy patients. Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Centre (File Photo) “It seems that the respondents are not serious about the work to be completed,” a bench of chief justice Suresh Kumar Kait and justice Vishal Jain said in its order after the hearing on January 6. The order was uploaded to the high court’s website on Wednesday. The high court shall next take up the case on January 18. An affidavit filed in the high court earlier had indicated that only 3,000 pages could be scanned in a day since medical records prior to 2014 were very old. “According to which, it is estimated that the work will be completed in a total of about 550 days, however, the exact time lines will be ascertainable only after the work is commenced,” the order said. “In para 8 of the said affidavit, it is stated that for establishing the cloud server under the e-hospital Project, a proposal has been obtained from the NIC and is pending for financial approval of Finance Department for which it is expected that the budget would be allocated in the Financial Year 2025- 26, thereafter the scanned record will be incorporated in the said server. According to the proposal given the NIC, the entire work would be completed in 12 months,” the high court said, adding that the respondents weren’t serious about the digitisation project. “Accordingly, the Secretary, Minry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India and Chief Secretary, Madhya Pradesh along with Director, Memorial Hospital Research Centre, Bhopal shall sit together within one week and finalize the action plan so that the issue in the present petition can be executed in a timeline and expeditiously,” the bench said. Thousands of people suffer serious and long-lasting health issues in Bhopal following the leak of methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas from the Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal on the intervening night of December 2-3, 1984. At least 5,479 people were killed due to the gas leak. In 2012 while hearing a petition filed Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan (BGPMUS) and others, the Supreme Court issued a string of directions regarding the treatment and rehabilitation of about 10,000 Bhopal gas survivors. A monitoring committee was constituted to ensure the implementation of these points and it was required to present its report to the high court every three months.
