Getting out of his comfort zone of erotic-horror, Vikram Bhatt is ready to tear open and expose the fatal flaws within the medical profession.
His next film tentatively titled The Ankur Arora Medical Case which fits at the floors post-monsoon would absorb the very urgent and disturbing issue of death during surgery. Inspired by a real-life case of a well-to-do entrepreneur's sudden demise while being operated on, the film will take story from the operation theatre to the courtroom as an eminent surgeon played by K K Menon may be placed on the dock and tried for murder.
Reluctant to show too many information about what he calls his most conscientious film till date, Vikram Bhatt says, "I'm deeply disturbed by the spate of deaths because of medical negligence. We presume only the poor die as a result of medical negligence. Not so. The wealthy who can afford the most efficient treatment also perish because someone within the Operation Theatre goofs up. And no person from the bereaved family knows the reality about how their friend died. They're too busy grieving to be aggrieved."
In Bhatt's film, the arrogant surgeon, K K Menon, would attempt to cover up and move on. But his two assistants, played by the very talented Arjun Mathur (seen in Luck By Chance and My Friend Pinto) and Vishakha Singh (Deepika Padukone's friend in Ashutosh Gowariker's Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Se) take the problem forward into the domain of legal justice.
Says Vikram passionately, "IT IS VERY important not to to let gross medical negligence go unpunished. I DO KNOW such a lot of individuals who let it go thinking it's pointless to pursue an issue when the dying is irreversible. AN EXPENSIVE friend recently lost his mother when as a result of careless dialysis she suffered a heart attack. The problem can't be closed simply because your beloved is gone."
In Bhatt's film, the nature of the prosecuted surgeon played by K K Menon is predicated on a real-life doctor who was tried for a medical negligence case. Bhatt even plans to shoot the film within the same hospital in Delhi where the case happened. Sighs Bhatt, "IT MIGHT BE tough because I WILL only shoot within the hospital at certain hours and under a veil of secrecy. Anything can happen later when the hospital authorities discover that they were extending hospitality and co-operation to a movie that was questioning one among their senior most doctors' medical ethics. But I won't shoot this film on a collection. No way! IT'S NOT THAT I AM shooting a Robin Cook medical thriller. I'M aiming at creating a realistic drama on one in all middleclass Indian's biggest fears, death in a hospital."
Nearly 365 days of study has gone into the film. Bhatt reveals that some of the commonest reasons for death within the OT is Aspiration Pneumonia. "A VARIETY OF deaths during surgery occur for this reason condition that develops during surgery. We have to understand what it is, on the way to stop it from taking lives," observes Bhatt.
Interestingly Paoli Dam who stripped right down to her bare essentials in Vikram Bhatt's Hate Story can be fully covered in The Ankur Arora Medical Case. "She plays a lawyer, so no chance of skin show. Hasn't she done enough of that?" reasons Bhatt.
Harsh Chhaya would play the landlord of the hospital who tries his best to hush up his star-surgeon's fatal error. Similarities to real life are on this case, NOT coincidental.
