A government hospital in Uttar Pradesh was till two days ago making patients fill up a Covid screening form that included the question whether they or their family members had attended the Tablighi Jamaat event, seven months after the gathering was vilified as a virus “super-spreader” and used to tarnish the minority community.
The questionnaire, which patients seeking out-patient treatment at Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow, needed to fill up had the question: “Have you or any of your family members attended the Tablighi Jamaat event or come in contact with anyone who did?”
A hospital spokesperson said the Hindi form had been issued by the government. A health department official said the form had been envisioned by the “political leadership” and that it was still being used in many government hospitals.
The Tablighi Jamaat gathering had been organised at a mosque in Delhi’s Nizamuddin area. The event had fallen prey to a vicious slander campaign in the initial days of the pandemic by sections of the government, BJP and the media. The event, and by association Muslims, had been accused of deliberately spreading the virus in the country, prompting Bombay High Court to observe that the government had found a “scapegoat”.
That the forms that had been issued in March had continued to be in circulation came into focus when a patient seeking treatment for gallstones at Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Institute of Medical Sciences was asked to fill up the questionnaire, which also had the usual questions such as declaration of symptoms such as fever and cough and also history of foreign travel and contact with Covid-19 patients.
Shakir Ali, a state government employee who had taken his 70-year-old mother, Amana Begum, to the hospital on October 8, alleged religious profiling and decided not to go back to the facility.
“Asking about our contact with the Tablighi Jamaat event is religious profiling. To me this query is insulting,” Shakir told The Telegraph over the phone on Wednesday, adding that he had never attended any Tablighi Jamaat event.
“It made me come to the conclusion that they treat patients according to their faith. A kind of distrust has developed and I decided not to continue my mother’s treatment at RMLIMS. The next day I took her to a private practitioner, who referred her to another doctor. The doctors have decided to go for a surgery and we will get it done at a private hospital,” Shakir said.
He said he would get his mother admitted later on Wednesday and the surgery would be done after two days of tests.
Nuzhat Husain, the officiating director of RMLIMS, said in response to a text message from this newspaper that the hospital had begun using a “new form” from October 12. The new form, a copy of which she shared, excludes the question on the Tablighi Jamaat.
Dr Srikesh Singh, RMLIMS spokesperson, told reporters on Wednesday that the earlier form had been provided by the government. “We are not authorised to design a Covid-19 screening form, it is decided by the government,” he said.
A health department official told this newspaper on the condition of anonymity that there had been “specific instructions” when the pandemic began to spread in March that “we would have to trace those who were from the Tablighi Jamaat or had come in contact with its members”.
“We had been instructed to report the number of Covid-19-infected people everyday and specifically mention how many were Tablighi members,” the official said.
“We are not into politics but we are easy instruments for politicians in the government. The format of the form had been given to us by the political leadership and our job was limited to getting it printed. Many hospitals in the state are using their own forms for the screening of Covid-19 patients and they don’t have any questions related to the Tablighi Jamaat. But many still have the old forms,” he added.
