As governments and NGOs fight on contamination levels, Bhopal gas tragedy victims continue to die a slow death
Lachho Bai, who lives in a hovel made of planks, is a towering challenge to our politicians who so often make hollow promises to the Bhopal gas tragedy victims. She also can contest any analysis, research reports, fund figures and above all arrest warrants issued in ‘favour’ of Warren Anderson.
Unfortunately, at the age of 51, thanks to the effects of methyl isocyanate (MIC), psycho-socio disorders, mental agonies and impaired vision have made her too ill to speak against anyone. Reduced to barebones, she seems to be in her eighties.
On December 2, 1984 when the worst-ever industrial disaster took place, her fate was sealed. She was no longer the cheerful lady in the narrow lanes of Jaypee Nagar near the Union Carbide India Limited factory. For all those who survived the disaster, cheer was something which no longer existed in their lexicon. At 16 she was married to hotel waiter Laxmi Narayan and used to assist him financially by rolling bidis. Lachho lost her four children, the fifth one was a daughter two-year-old when the venomous night pushed people like her into darkness.
“She cannot speak, sometimes she smiles, sometimes cries. She lost her mind 15 years ago,” recalls Hazira Bi, an activist and survivor of the tragedy. For Laccho, her husband, a labourer now and also a gas victim, suffering from various ailments, is the only hope to fight against extreme poverty.
Unlike Lachho Bai, her neighbour Jagdish Ahirwar looks a healthy teenager. But in fact he is suffering from a growth-related disorder. The disaster has gifted him diabetes at an early age. He is a man of 22 and takes a full dose of insulin each day to maintain his sugar, mocking facilities of world-class Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Centre, its expert doctors and world class diagnosis medicines. No medicine can make him taller. “You tell me which doctor should I consult, with this swollen hand and face?” he asks.
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His three-and-a-half feet sister Renu is also a teenager in appearance. At 27, a mother of two, she is struggling to survive without medical aids. Renu has discontinued all medicines and now has pinned her hopes on God. “I have consumed tons of medicines. How long should I keep on consuming? We are very poor, we cannot afford medicines and harassment at government hospitals,” she said. “I do not breast-feed my child, otherwise he will also fall sick,” she added.Among 25-lakh patients treated at six government hospitals during 1985-2008, Lachho Bai never figured. Like her, many unknown victims are languishing in some filthy lanes of twenty localities near the Union Carbide’s closed unit, consuming toxic water, inhaling poisonous toxic dust and eventually falling seriously or terminally sick. Many have developed complicated diseases years after the tragedy. Vasheer Khan (60) has developed an unidentified disease in his foot. He was a skilled truck driver few years ago but resigned from his job. “Jab aankh se di khta nahi hai to kya truck chala kar kisi ki jaan leta (Should I have killed someone, when I know I have a poor eyesight?”) he said. Now he is on mercy of his sons who are also jobless and sick. He is so poor that free medical facilities available at nearby Sambhavana Trust Clinic or Jawahar Lal Nehru Hospital and Research Centre are miles away. “Aane Jaane ka kiraya kahan se layen? (From where should I arrange to-and-fro fare to nearby hospital)?” he asks.
In the faces of all problems, authorities keep on chewing fat. “We pay crores of rupees to Jawaharlal Nehru Cancer Hospital for free cancer treatment of gas victims, Rs 45 crore annually for all six gas relief hospitals of 634-bed capacity. These hospitals are fully equipped with ultra-modern medical facilities where we provide medical care to 4,000 outdoor patients and 30,000 indoor patients each day, perform 2.5 lakh investigations and 10,000 special investigations each year. What else can we do for the patients?” director of Kamla Nehru Hospital Dr KK Dubey said.
He may be right, but Nafees, a young man of 32 has now few options left for her sister, who is suffering from a nephrological disorder multicystic kidney displagia, which she had developed in 2004. “I have arranged more than 116 dialysis sessions at a private hospital for my sister Shabana, who was already suffering from various ailments after the gas disaster. Now I hardly have any option, I am ready to donate my kidney to her but I cannot afford the medical expenses,” said Nafees.