Tuesday, January 16, 2018

The Sorry state of Indian Journalism

 I can  only come to the  conclusion that  the  state of affairs  among the  proliferating   "Journalists" contributing to the  various  TV, cable, Websites  is pathetic
 As a physician  who is  aware of  investigative  journalism only through books, news, and Movies, and even, I can  pick  a number  of holes in  Caravan, NDTV and Wired reports on Justice  Loya's
 " Mysterious " Death.


All I can gather from all these reports is that the Emergency ambulance services are direly needed in all the cities of India.

All ER personnel need to be trained.
and the so-called "reporters "Journos " need  Continuing education like us doctors;-)

 why is a judge's Cardiac arrest  Mysterious?
"Google Maps shows Dande hospital to be a six-minute drive away. Given that Loya is said to have arrived there “around 4:45 or 5:00 am”, the vehicle that apparently took him would have left the guest house around 4:40-4:55, a full 40-55 minutes after Loya first complained of acute chest pain. Why the VIP guest house staff could not arrange a vehicle any sooner is not clear."

you mean to tell me no one had  UBER/OLA app on their phone?

Curiously,  the ECG published by the Indian Express is time-stamped “05:11, November 30”, i.e. a day before Loya was taken to(a) hospital. The newspaper does not explain the reason for the wrong date – given the role ECGs play in helping doctors review a patient’s case history, it is unusual for the date to be off. The judge’s name is also spelt (spelled) incorrectly on the ECG report. So you expect people in an emergency cannot write the name  "LOYA" which is somewhat rare compared to LOHIYA  which is common?

Did the report check any other  ECG's taken on the same day and ECG done on the day he visited the Hospital to see if the ECG machines date is off?
 From the quality of reporting done by both caravan and  ND TV, I come to the conclusion much training is needed for investigative journalists on the bare fundamental necessities of an investigation.
such as cell phone records of justice Loy's  family members. to ascertain the timings.
if you thought all clocks all over Nagpur and in all the Hospitals in Nagpur are Synchronized, you are living in a fantasy land.

These jokers who call themselves reporters even have the fundamental knowledge of what is done when a patient is brought in with chest pain.
 ER doctors would first administer an aspirin and a sublingual nitroglycerine while someone else is trying to find a vein and start an IV line.as it is not easy to do this in a patient who has collapsed many attempts have to be made.
 and it is normal to have even broken ribs if a proper cardiac resuscitation is performed.

 All that the " government forensic expert" not the doctor who actually performed the autopsy. giving a hypothetical opinion.
"how the government hospital which conducted the post-mortem satisfied itself that Rathi was indeed a close relative and that the body could be released to him without even talking to any of Loya’s close family members."
 they would gladly do it f  a local doctor appears at the Morgue and claims to be a relative and is willing to sign the form.
anyway, are there any established protocols in  Nagpur Hospitals or Postmortem performing places regarding Privacy or methods of determining who is the next of kin?
 what is the take on  IMA  or the  Maharashtra branch of IMA  on this matter?
I do not recollect  any  chapter  in  the  Forensic  medicine  book  which  I read  while in school how  to go about  handing  over  a body after  a post mortem>

"whose name he also remembered three years later "
what are you implying the judge cannot remember this?
"Bribery claims: The allegation by Loya’s relatives that the judge had been offered a bribe by the former chief justice of the Bombay high court remain unaddressed so far, and the chief justice in question has chosen not to speak on the matter."
So you think  the  former  chief  Justice is  such an idiot that he  will come  out in  public and  say " I tried to  Bribe  Justice  Loya "
"Telephone data: Loya’s relatives also told Caravan that his phone was only returned to them 2-3 days after his death and that the data appeared to have been deleted."
all cell data can be cross-checked from the phone company record , police in India at anytime .

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