Conversion of hospital for Bhopal Gas Tragedy victims into COVID-19 Treatment Zone: SC asks petitioner to approach Madhya Pradesh HC

Even as the country reels under the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic, a survivor of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy has moved the Supreme Court challenging the conversion of Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Centre (BMHRC) into a specialised COVID-19 treatment zone..The Bench headed by Chief Justice of India SA Bobde today asked the petitioners to approach the Madhya Pradesh High Court at Jabalpur at once..Advocate Karuna Nundy, appearing for the petitioners, submitted that they would move the High Court immediately.The matter was thus disposed of..It is claimed that the decision of Madhya Pradesh government to do so has resulted in the discharge of patients suffering due to the 1984 industrial disaster..The state, which as of now has close to 215 Coronavirus cases, had issued an order on March 23 stating that BMHRC will be turned into an isolation and treatment centre solely for COVID-19 patients. The state government now controls the entire administration of the hospital, under directions of the District Magistrate..Following this, on March 24, the Director of BMHRC issued an order that “all health care services” in the hospital will only be provided for COVID-19 patients and no one else..The 68-year-old petitioner, Munni Bee, underwent a tracheostomy in the ICU on March 11 and since then, has been in the General ICU under critical medical care. However, the petitioner has submitted that she has been asked to leave the hospital and make space for COVID-19 patients..The plea in the Supreme Court challenges the orders of the state government and the hospital as being violative of Articles 14 and 19 of the Indian Constitution. It is stated that the patients who have been suffering from Methyl Isocyanate poisoning as a result of the Gas Tragedy were more vulnerable than others to the Coronavirus outbreak. BMHRC is the only super-speciality hospital equipped to take care of their needs..Munni Bee and Bhopal Group for Information and Action have informed the Court that during midnight of March 24, the hospital had started discharging all patients,.“...over 80 % of which were those with history of acute exposure to Union Carbide’s poisonous gas from the Intensive Care, Surgical and Medical wards in the hospital and succeeded in discharging 86 patients therefrom.”.The petition states that as of March 24, “all the Emergency Services of the Casualty Ward of BMHRC have been closed,” along with the closure of “all the dialysis facilities from March 25”.It goes on to noted that the first COVID-19 patient to die in Bhopal was a gas tragedy victim..“There are about 30 gas victims who undergo dialysis twice a week at the hospital, whose lives, without timely and quality dialysis, are in perennial danger." .The plea further makes a case that such conversion of a specialised hospital to treat COVID-19 patients was a breach of the “terms of the Trust Deed under which the Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Centre was set up” under the directions of the Supreme Court in 1991..On October 3, 1991, the Supreme Court had directed the Union Carbide Corporation to build a 500-bed hospital with the best services and equipment for treatment of the survivors of the disaster. The Court also called for medical surveillance and expert medical care for the victims pursuant to the settlement with Union Carbide Corporation and Union Carbide India Ltd..“Proposal of an isolation centre to be set up for treatment of the CoVID-19 patients by shutting down the entire hospital to Bhopal gas victims in need of Intensive and urgent care is arbitrary and unreasonable as the BMHRC hospital has a total capacity of 350 bed.”.The petitioners have urged the Court that there are alternate hospitals like Pulmonary Medicine Centre, Gas Relief Hospital, located in and near-by Jahangirabad, which can be used for COVID-19 patients instead of the hospital which is solely meant for the victims of the industrial disaster..Read Order: