Bhopal(Madhya pradesh): Standing shoulder to shoulder with the nurses subjected to alleged ‘sexual harassment’ at the Hamidia hospital, the medical fraternity at the facility has questioned the clean chit given by a probe committee to hospital Medical Superintendent (MS) Dr Deepak Maravi in the case.
Questioning the fairness of the probe, the doctors and nurses at the hospital said that investigation against Maravi was conducted when he was sitting conveniently on the post of MS.
On instruction of minister for medical education Vishvas Sarang, divisional commissioner Gulshan Bamara had constituted a committee to investigate into the sexual harassment allegations made by 50 nurses against Maravi.
Citing previous incidents when the accused doctors/ officials were removed from the post while the investigation against them were conducted, the medicos at the hospital said that the investigating committee looked into sexual harassment allegations against Maravi while he continued to sit on the post of hospital medical superintendent. One cannot rule out the chances of the probe being compromised under such circumstances, the medicos said.
Senior doctors on condition of anonymity, said that earlier, on two occasions, MS were removed for fair investigations in Hamidia Hospital. In the first case, the then medical superintendent Dr ID Chaurasia was removed from the post when the issue of Remdesiver theft surfaced at the hospital. Again following fire at the hospital child unit on November 21,2021, Dr Lokendra Dave, the then medical superintendent, was removed for fair investigation. However in the nurses’ sexual harassment case, Maravi was not removed when probe against him was conducted. The probe committee recorded statements of nurses in a highly confidential manner for around 10 days.
The nurses had written to chief minister, medical education minister, home minister, Director General of Police (DGP), and SHOs of both police stations—Koh-e-Fiza and Mahila Thana, regarding sexual harassment they were facing at the hands of Dr Maravi. “Over a week has passed but still no FIR has been registered against the accused MS on the basis of the complaint made by nurses. The probe too has been concluded and the commit has given a clean chit. When
Meanwhile, divisional commissioner Gulshan Bamara refused to comment when asked about the clean chit given to Maravi.
