The Madhya Pradesh High Court has issued a significant directive to the Union Health Ministry, the Madhya Pradesh government, and the Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Centre, mandating the digitization of medical records of survivors of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy. This order was passed on January 6 and made public on Wednesday.
In response to a contempt petition by the Bhopal Gas Peedith Mahila Udyog Sanghathan concerning the rehabilitation of the tragedy’s survivors, Chief Justice SK Kait and Justice Vivek Jain criticized the apparent lack of urgency in addressing the survivors’ needs. The court emphasized the necessity for a concrete and swift action plan, stating, “It seems that the respondents are not serious about the work to be completed.”
The high court has instructed the Secretary of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the Chief Secretary of Madhya Pradesh, and the Director of the Bhopal Memorial Hospital Research Centre to collaborate and finalize an action plan within one week. They are also required to submit daily progress reports on their initial meeting and ensure that necessary funding for the project is secured promptly.
The ongoing process to digitize the records has faced significant delays, with an affidavit explaining that only 3,000 pages can be scanned daily due to the age of the documents, predicting a total of 550 days to complete the task. Further delays are anticipated as financial approvals for the necessary cloud server under the e-hospital project, proposed by the National Informatics Centre, are still pending.
This initiative aims to preserve and make accessible the health records of those affected by the tragic gas leak on the night of December 2-3, 1984, from the Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal, which resulted in thousands of deaths and chronic health issues for many survivors. The completion of the digitization project, according to the NIC’s proposal, is expected within 12 months once begun.
