The Times of India 28.07.2012
Mayor takes journos on CDH tour, official snatches camera
CHENNAI: After denying cases of cholera for several days before medical reports provided confirmation, Chennai Corporation
now appears to be exceeding its brief in dealing with the media. A
senior TOI photographer, who tried to click photographs of patients in
the Communicable Diseases Hospital at Tondiarpet had his camera snatched by joint commissioner (health) Pooja Kulkarni. She then abused the journalist.
On Friday, when 22 more patients were admitted with diarrhoea in the
city, mayor Saidai Duraisamy invited journalists to accompany him to CDH
where he wanted to show them "how well patients are recovering and how
good our hospital is." At the hospital, reporters were told to surrender
their mobile phones and cameras.
When the corporation
photographer started taking pictures from the door, TOI photographer C
Suresh Kumar took the cue and began clicking through a window. Without
warning, Kulkarni snatched the camera from him and threatened to remove
the microchip unless he deleted the pictures. Even as the mayor tried to
pacify the officer saying, "leave it, we are not hiding anything,"
Kulkarni kept shouting that Kumar was "intruding on the patient's
privacy." Later, corporation commissioner D Karthikeyan wrote to TOI,
complaining that the journalist showed "disrespect for patient privacy."
It is important to note that patient privacy, as a matter of ethics, is
observed in cases of diseases that carry a social stigma. TOI's efforts
to report on the cholera situation are to present and analyse standards
of public sanitation and hygiene. The commissioner and his overzealous
colleague may be aware that in the past the corporation has taken
journalists on conducted tours of spruced-up civic hospitals where
officials and politicians have posed for pictures with patients,
regardless of their medical condition. In any case, on Friday, none of
the patients or their relatives protested.
Incidentally, by the
corporation's own admission, 20 more patients were admitted to CDH and
two to Kilpauk Medical College on Friday. So far four have tested
positive for cholera and 312 diagnosed with acute diarrhoeal disease.
