Bhopal: About Rs 400 crore has been claimed to have been spent in providing free healthcare to those affected by Bhopal gas leak. But, NDTV's Mohuya Chaudhri finds that patients are being duped with placebos.
At the busy Bhopal memorial hospital's unit one is meant to treat only gas victims. Seventy five-year-old Pooja Ram is here to collect his next batch of medicines. It's a routine visit. He suffers from dizzy spells and breathlessness - symptoms that most gas-affected people in Bhopal have.
But when NDTV looked at the prescription, we find that he has been given ORS that's given to re-hydrate patients, especially children, after diarrhea, as well as vitamin B complex.
"The medicines which we get don't seem to work," said Pooja Ram.
Just outside the centre, an angry mob gathered to show more such prescriptions which point towards criminal medical negligence. Placebos have been given instead of proper medicines to cure the symptoms.
A man showed prescription. He was prescribed Voveran - a painkiller - for dizzy spells and breathlessness.
Out of the Gas Relief fund, over Rs 400 crores was reportedly spent to provide free and quality healthcare to gas victims. But doctors are cheating them in the name of treatment. It isn't surprising that almost all of those we spoke to say they have never recovered from the impact of the gas leak.
"In these hospitals there has been no pathologist or radiologist for years. Fifty per cent of them are not even qualified," said Abdul Jabbar.
None of the doctors at the Bhopal memorial were willing to speak to NDTV.
Some of the people NDTV met have lived with serious chronic ailments. Almost all said, they never got proper medicines and now it is clear that doctors are prescribing wrong medicines as well. Since most patients do not have any knowledge of drugs, they are unable to understand the deception that is taking place in the name of treatment.