Bhopal victims protest yoga care denial in hospitals

BHOPAL - Four organisations working for the welfare of the Bhopal gas tragedy survivors Tuesday condemned the Madhya Pradesh government’s alleged denial of Yoga care at the hospitals where the survivors suffering from chronic illnesses are being treated.

“While the chief minister directs schools all over the state to organise ‘Surya Namaskar’, he is yet to direct resumption of Yoga at the hospitals where survivors of the disaster have stopped receiving it since July 2009,” the organisations said in a joint statement.

Terming it “sheer hypocrisy”, Syed M. Irfan of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangharsh Morcha, said the chief minister has taken no steps against the arbitrary closure of Yoga treatment at the hospitals where more than 2,000 survivors have received effective care for problems such as breathlessness, joint pains, back ache, menstrual irregularities and others through Yoga.

A leakage of methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas Dec 3, 1984, at a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal led to one of the biggest industrial disasters of the world, killing over 3,000 people instantly. An estimate said 8,000-10,000 died within 72 hours and 25,000 have since died from gas-related diseases.

Presenting official documents obtained through the Right to Information (RTI) Act, the leaders of the organisations charged the officials in the Department of Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation with “ignorance of medical facts” and depraved “indifference” towards the treatment of chronically ill survivors.

They said that after two and half years of successful Yoga treatment at two of the government hospitals, this facility was terminated on the basis that patients found no relief through Yoga.