Groups working with survivors of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy have accused the Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Centre (BMHRC) of negligence reportedly causing death of six COVID-19 patients in its isolation ward in 16 days.
In a letter to the Supreme Court-appointed monitoring committee, the groups, while sharing details of the patients who reportedly died from September 1 to 16, claimed there was no full-time doctor posted at the ward and no treatment for COVID-19 was being administered to them at the Indian Council of Medical Research-run institute.
“Keeping in view the vulnerability of gas survivors, the BMHRC should have prepared for this crisis. We are hoping the committee directs it to start a 40 ICU [intensive care unit] and HDU [high dependency unit] bed unit to cater to survivors suffering from COVID-19 at the earliest,” said Rachna Dhingra of Bhopal Group for Information and Action.
The BMHRC’s Director and the public relations officer didn’t take calls for a comment.
