Mumbai uncaps its pent up emotions on the Net

Citizens’ portal praises public hospitals for the immediate medical attention  provided to the victims

Sumitra Deb Roy

It is ironic, but there could have been more casualties due to the 11/7 blasts had ambulances reached the blast sites in time. Doctors at public hospitals claim they could have been well-equipped to handle the crisis situation had any government official taken the responsibility to inform them about the blast. 

Doctors, survivors and relatives of blast victims made these revelations - about experiences during rescue and transportation to hospitals, morgues and also while procuring compensation - in the portal mumbaiVOICES.com that was launched in August last year. Eleven months after the blast, the website plans to take forward this citizen-driven discussion to systematic analysis, and then engage citizens along with state and central agencies in discussions to boost disaster management plans.

Testimonials by Mumbaikars in the portal suggested that public hospitals have scored well as far as immediate medical help was concerned. Relatives of the deceased as well as the injured claimed that medical help was given to them within 20 minutes of reaching the hospital premises. However, people deterred from taking any of the injured to private hospitals as they were doubtful about charges and admission procedures there.

Conceptualised by Mumbaikars at home and those staying abroad, mumbaiVOICES was a collective initiative of the National Knowledge Commission (NKC), the All-India Disaster Mitigation Institute, Mumbai University’s Economics Department, Ambulance Access for All and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI).

“We aim at creating public pressure to influence government policies on disaster management and for this we believe the active involvement of people is a must,” said Satchit Balsari, convener, Project mumbaiVOICES. He is a Chief Resident Doctor at the Division of Emergency Medicine, New York Presbyterian Hospital .

So do many others who are volunteering for the success of this mission.  Balsari added that the NKC Chairman Sam Pitroda insisted that more technology that people can better connect with should be brought to tackle disasters.