Bhopal:

Taking swift action after an NDTV report highlighted massive staff shortages in hospitals meant for survivors of the 1984 Bhopal Gas Tragedy, the Madhya Pradesh Health Services Directorate has cleared the appointment of 12 doctors. 

The doctors are among 15 spoken about in the report, whose posting had been cleared, only for some of them to be told informally later that the orders had been cancelled.  

In its July 29 report, NDTV had highlighted that of the 1,247 posts in gas relief hospitals, only 749 – or a little over half – are filled, leaving thousands of gas leak victims without adequate care.

On May 16, the Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation Department had advertised for the posts of 46 specialists and 69 medical officers and, on June 27, the Health Services Directorate had ordered the posting of only 15 medical officers including 5 specialists. Even among these, however, some were later told that the posting orders had been cancelled and one of them had said that they weren’t even given an explanation for the selection process getting stalled. 

Last year, the Madhya Pradesh High Court had threatened contempt proceedings against top officials for failing to fill vacancies and, during a hearing on July 30 this year, it had sought a status report from the Gas Relief Department by Wednesday

The appointments were made on Tuesday and the Health Services Directorate informed a high court bench of Acting Chief Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva and Justice Vinay Saraf about them during a hearing on Wednesday. Senior lawyer Anshuman Singh also brought a monitoring committee’s report from May 2024 to the notice of the court, highlighting that gas victims suffering from cancer were not receiving timely treatment due to inaction on the part of the authorities. 

The court ordered that there should be no delay or cessation in the treatment of any gas victims and asked both the state and central governments to file a reply. 

Rachna Dhingra, a social worker advocating for gas victims, termed the appointments a significant victory.  “The gas victims will now be able to get surgeries done which had been pending for years because of a lack of surgeons and anesthesiologists at gas relief hospitals,” she said.