Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Centre (BMHRC) lacks the necessary policy vision or physical infrastructure due to which its performance has continuously deteriorated over the years, allege Bhopal gas victims organizations in a letter to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
The matter has been raised by Abdul Jabbar and ND Jayaprakash on behalf of Bhopal Gas Peedith Mahila Udyog Sanghathan (BGPMUS) and Bhopal Gas Peedith Sangharsh Sahayog Samiti (BGPSSS) respectively in a letter addressed to ICMR Senior Deputy Director General (Administration) TS Jawahar on April 27.
In the letter, the activists have alleged that the hospital management has no progressive policy for attracting and retaining doctors.
“As ICMR has not had the requisite competence in managing a super-specialty hospital, it has not yet formulated rules or policies for appointing faculty members at super-specialty academic institutions. This is causing great difficulty in attracting & retaining medical specialists, who are continuously leaving because of which more than 50% posts of super-specialists are lying vacant,” the letter states.
They have also alleged that for the last three years, there has been no up-gradation of equipments or replacement of broken instruments. Patient care is getting affected and many patients have been compelled to get requisite medical tests done privately at exorbitant costs for undergoing treatment, they point out.
Very often, many drugs – including life saving ones – are not available at BMHRC. As a result, gas-victim patients are compelled to buy them from outside, they further point out.
The activists have demanded that the hospital should be declared as an autonomous Post Graduate Institution with progressive policies for staff and faculty like the Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai. Besides, they have also demanded that facilities for computerized health cards, treatment protocols, super-specialty care and documentation should also be provided in the hospital.