I started teaching reporting to TYBMM students earlier this year. when I read the syllabus, I realised that there were a few scams/scandals they will have to write about. There is a lot of material available on Watergate, some articles/reports about Cement scam and Cobblers' scam. However, there is hardly anything about JJ Deaths case, which was broken by Maharashtra Times (MT) reporter Jagan Fadnis (JF). so I called up Prakash Akolkar (PA), who was working as a reporter then in the same newspaper. I got an almost first person account of how the news broke. The account tells a tale of how journalism was done then.
It was in February 1986. PA had gone to the then VSNL, now BSNL, union office at Fort as labour was one of his beats. (I won't blame you if you are wondering what is a labour beat! Labour was a very important beat then. All newspapers in Mumbai had a labour reporter. MT even started a whole page once a week - कामगार जगत which was handled by Prabhakar Narkar (PN). PN covered the beat for many years and lived the life of an activist. He is now an active member of the Janata Dal.) So, PA had gone to this union office, where one of the guys asked him if he knew about the deaths in the JJ Hospital recently. PA said no. The union guy said, a certain drug was said to be responsible for the deaths and there was a notice put up in the hospital banning the use of the medicine. PA asked if he could get a copy of the notice. He was assured of a copy the next day. With the news, PA came to office, and told the then Editor Govind Talwalkar about it. But he also made it clear that he wouldn't give the story unless he had the copy of the notice in his hands.
There was a landline phone in the MT office, which was at the reporters' desk. The phone rang in the evening and PA picked it up. Jagan Fadnis, his colleague who was on leave that day, was on the line. JF said, he had a big story. PA said, he knew about it. JF was surprised to hear that PA also had the same story. After listening to how PA got it, he told PA to go ahead and break the story, as it was a very big story. But PA stuck to his words and went home without filing his story.
Next morning PA woke up to see the story as the lead in MT. After coming to office, he got to know that JF had filed the story anyway. His sources were supposed to be some doctors in the JJ.
That was the time when Mid-day and Afternoon were published in the morning and hit the market around 9.30 AM. They would normally pick up big stories from the morning papers and do a follow up if it was an important story. The JJ deaths story was obviously very big and the then state health minister Bhai Sawant had clarified through Mid-day that the news was wrong and there were no such deaths. It seems the then chief minister AR Antulay also tried to pressurize the editor of MT. But he didn't buckle under the pressure and MT followed the story for months together.
The story was - around 30 patients in the nephrology, neurology, neurosurgery and opthalmology departments of JJ had died after being administered glycerol, in January and February 1986. (MT stuck with 41 deaths. The number is not clear.) The glycerine that was administered was contaminated with diethylene glycol, a deadly poison. The drug was sourced to one Alpana Pharma.
JF got to know of this through some doctors. After the story was published, it gave birth to a series of stories. What was the drug about, how it came to be used in the hospital, which was the lab that produced it, what was it used for otherwise and so on. Once the first story was broken by JF, PA and a couple of other reporters worked on the different angles of it. MT even published an appeal to readers, asking if they knew of anyone who was admitted in these departments earlier and had died after being discharged. Justice Bakhtawar Lentin was appointed head of a commission to look into the deaths. MT had done such in depth reports that the Lentin commission admitted the news reports on its records.
Sawant resigned almost two years later, before the Lentin commission was tabled in the house.
PA learnt that the Ethanol used in the drug was used to make soaps in the US. So he approached someone he knew in Hindustan Lever, then the leaders in the soap market. He learnt that the amount of the chemical in the soap was much less than was found in the drug administered to the patients. It turned out to be fatal to those patients.
The chemical analysis of the drug was done at a lab at the Ruia college. PA had some source there so he could get a story from there too.
The PM reports of the dead patients would be a great evidence and PA and the other reporters tried to get those. With luck, another labour union member from JJ who later became a Shiv Sena leader, helped PA with copies of the PM reports.
The Lentin commission recommended that there should be two deans in each government hospital, one for the medical part and other for the administrative part. It is almost 30 years since then, and we have just one dean in the government hospitals.
Similar deaths still keep occurring in various hospitals. the recent death of a woman in the Kurla Bhabha hospital is a case in point. But there doesn't seem to be a similar kind of follow up.
This is also a good reference. http://nmji.in/approval/archive/Volume-1/issue-3/medicine-and-society.pdf
It was in February 1986. PA had gone to the then VSNL, now BSNL, union office at Fort as labour was one of his beats. (I won't blame you if you are wondering what is a labour beat! Labour was a very important beat then. All newspapers in Mumbai had a labour reporter. MT even started a whole page once a week - कामगार जगत which was handled by Prabhakar Narkar (PN). PN covered the beat for many years and lived the life of an activist. He is now an active member of the Janata Dal.) So, PA had gone to this union office, where one of the guys asked him if he knew about the deaths in the JJ Hospital recently. PA said no. The union guy said, a certain drug was said to be responsible for the deaths and there was a notice put up in the hospital banning the use of the medicine. PA asked if he could get a copy of the notice. He was assured of a copy the next day. With the news, PA came to office, and told the then Editor Govind Talwalkar about it. But he also made it clear that he wouldn't give the story unless he had the copy of the notice in his hands.
There was a landline phone in the MT office, which was at the reporters' desk. The phone rang in the evening and PA picked it up. Jagan Fadnis, his colleague who was on leave that day, was on the line. JF said, he had a big story. PA said, he knew about it. JF was surprised to hear that PA also had the same story. After listening to how PA got it, he told PA to go ahead and break the story, as it was a very big story. But PA stuck to his words and went home without filing his story.
Next morning PA woke up to see the story as the lead in MT. After coming to office, he got to know that JF had filed the story anyway. His sources were supposed to be some doctors in the JJ.
That was the time when Mid-day and Afternoon were published in the morning and hit the market around 9.30 AM. They would normally pick up big stories from the morning papers and do a follow up if it was an important story. The JJ deaths story was obviously very big and the then state health minister Bhai Sawant had clarified through Mid-day that the news was wrong and there were no such deaths. It seems the then chief minister AR Antulay also tried to pressurize the editor of MT. But he didn't buckle under the pressure and MT followed the story for months together.
The story was - around 30 patients in the nephrology, neurology, neurosurgery and opthalmology departments of JJ had died after being administered glycerol, in January and February 1986. (MT stuck with 41 deaths. The number is not clear.) The glycerine that was administered was contaminated with diethylene glycol, a deadly poison. The drug was sourced to one Alpana Pharma.
JF got to know of this through some doctors. After the story was published, it gave birth to a series of stories. What was the drug about, how it came to be used in the hospital, which was the lab that produced it, what was it used for otherwise and so on. Once the first story was broken by JF, PA and a couple of other reporters worked on the different angles of it. MT even published an appeal to readers, asking if they knew of anyone who was admitted in these departments earlier and had died after being discharged. Justice Bakhtawar Lentin was appointed head of a commission to look into the deaths. MT had done such in depth reports that the Lentin commission admitted the news reports on its records.
Sawant resigned almost two years later, before the Lentin commission was tabled in the house.
PA learnt that the Ethanol used in the drug was used to make soaps in the US. So he approached someone he knew in Hindustan Lever, then the leaders in the soap market. He learnt that the amount of the chemical in the soap was much less than was found in the drug administered to the patients. It turned out to be fatal to those patients.
The chemical analysis of the drug was done at a lab at the Ruia college. PA had some source there so he could get a story from there too.
The PM reports of the dead patients would be a great evidence and PA and the other reporters tried to get those. With luck, another labour union member from JJ who later became a Shiv Sena leader, helped PA with copies of the PM reports.
The Lentin commission recommended that there should be two deans in each government hospital, one for the medical part and other for the administrative part. It is almost 30 years since then, and we have just one dean in the government hospitals.
Similar deaths still keep occurring in various hospitals. the recent death of a woman in the Kurla Bhabha hospital is a case in point. But there doesn't seem to be a similar kind of follow up.
This is also a good reference. http://nmji.in/approval/archive/Volume-1/issue-3/medicine-and-society.pdf
Hello Ma'am. Your blog helped my for my Reporting board exams! Thank you.
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