Mumbai: In a new, police have registered an FIR against social welfare organisation Jeevan Jyot Trust and six persons for allegedly posting underqualified and bogus doctors at MT Agarwal Hospital of the BMC in Mulund West. The FIR was registered following a court order.
The complainant, Goldie Sharma, has alleged that in an RTI reply received by him, it has been revealed that almost 149 deaths were recorded in the hospital’s ICU in a span of nine months – from February 17 to November 22 , 2018. The cause of the deaths is listed as heart attack, said Sharma.
According to his statement to the police, he started looking into the hospital’s activities after the death of his brother Rajkumar Sharma, in the ICU, on June 4, 2019. The trust, Jeevan Jyot, was granted Rs8 crore by the BMC to run the hospital, revealed the RTI, Sharma told the police. He added that the said trust had appointed doctors without eligible degrees like MBBS, BMS and BHMS in the hospital’s ICU.
Technical investigation on
The Mulund police have begun “technical investigation” into the matter and have also formed teams to probe the allegations. Along with the trust, the FIR names Dr Virendra Yadav, Jyoti Thakkar, JC Vakil, Ratanlal Jain, Deepak Jain and Deepti Mehta as accused.
The BMC, however, said that 149 deaths in the span of nine to 10 months in an ICU is not alarming or unnatural. “ICUs get critical patients so the figure, if we go by usual statistics in ICU units, is not alarming. Certain times it’s more than 149,” said a senior health official of the BMC, on the condition of anonymity.
When asked about the allegations of bogus doctors, she added, “When we look for doctors to be placed in ICUs, there is usually a protocol followed. This includes their identity proof, residence proof and their qualification certificate. In cases like these, we look for the ones who have finished their MBBS or BHMS.”
The official said that as per this protocol they hired the doctors along with Jeevan Jyot Trust. “However, we do not have the mechanism to authenticate the qualification certificates. So if they are fake, we may not realise it. Nevertheless, since the matter is with the police, we hope they get to the root of it and we will cooperate fully with the probe,” she said.
Offences
In the case, police have added serious non-bailable offences against the trust and the accused, including 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 416 (cheating by personation), 465 (forgery), 117 (abetting commission of offence by the public or by more than ten persons), 120B (criminal conspiracy) among others of the Indian Penal Code and the Maharashtra Medical Practitioners Act.
