Munnabhais of Bengal: A massive fake doctors' racket has exposed the sick state of healthcare
It’s raining Munnabhai MBBS in Bengal. Every lane, by-lane, alley, dark and dingy and even swank private hospitals and government health units are sprouting doctors with fancy degrees from more fancier medical colleges, which might be difficult to locate, though. And such has been the unlicensed and unbridled growth of the Munnabhai-like doctors and their Circuits, that being alive without having bumped into them, at least at some bend of life, seems to be a miracle.
The West Bengal Medical Council is on a massive mission to sanitise the health system of such Munnabhais, in other words fake doctors, who have been practising and prescribing medicines illegally without an MBBS degree. Incidentally, the council woke up to the mission of eradicating the malaise only after majority of these Munnabhais have had a roaring time in their practise, growing from strength to strength, their assets, property and consequently clout in that order growing by leaps and bounds.
What prompted the state medical council to act is still a mystery but what is not intriguing is that the council sat down on the decision, whether to act or not, for three months, even though the state CID had indicated that a large number of fake doctors have taken over the medical profession.
According to an officer in the state CID, the investigating agency was waiting for a nod from the chief minister. The chief minister was definitely taking time. After her proverbial surgical strike on private hospitals and nursing homes, she was weighing out how the busting of the fake doctors racket would impact the image of the health system of the state, health being her portfolio.
And when the nod finally came, skeletons were already tumbling out of the cupboard and in heaps. The state medical council has identified 500 odd fake doctors and seven to eight fake medical institutes, which are giving fake medical degrees.
Seven persons arrested so far includes one Ramesh Chandra Vaidya, a member of Alternative Medical Council, Kolkata, who has confessed to selling more than 500 fake medical cerificates. And some of the smart Munnabhais, exposed, were associated with premier medical institutions.
For instance, Ajay Tiwari, a B Com graduate, who identified himself as a specialist in gastroenterology, was associated with a reputable city hospital for 20 years. He charged Rs 2,500 as his visit for each patient. Naren Pandey, another fake doctor, attached to the OPD of Belle Vue Clinic as an allergy specialist, claimed he was a Unani practitioner. His social networking site profile claims he studied at Xinjiang Medical University.
ADG Rajesh Kumar confirmed that Pandey could not produce any genuine certificate to establish his claims. Both Tiwari and Pandey held sufficient clout both among the politicians and the police and were close to many in the state Medical Council and the doctor’s wing of the Trinamool Congress.
Ram Shankar Singh, another under CID’s custody, who was practising in Howrah, had a mouthful of degrees trailing on the signboard of his clinic. The degree—“MBBS, Biochem, MD, DIAAMS, DMALT” whatever it might mean had been drawing patients in hordes for years. Another doctor and owner of a private nursing home, Subhendu Bhattacharya, now in police custody, was found to have got an award from the President recently.
With such shocking revelations, the whole medical fraternity is reeling under the tremors. An atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust has taken over. The state medical council has got on the job of verifying the registration numbers of doctors, enrolled with them, but what about those, who are registered with other states?
The Trinamool Congress MLA Nirmal Majhi, who also heads the state medical council and had been unknowingly sheltering fake doctors such as Tewari and Pandey, tried to kick up a political row by raising question about the veracity of veteran Marxist leader, Surjya Kanta Mishra’s degree in Bachelor of Medicine since his registration number could not be matched with the ones under state council.
Mishra has got his degree from the Cuttack University and naturally is not registered in Bengal. The false allegation left Mishra livid. The party and Mishra’s daughter rubbished such wondering by posting his qualification on social media .
Meanwhile, Unani and Ayurveda and other alternative medicines, coming under the ministry of Ayush are categorised as Indian system of medicines and practitioners holding Bachelor of Ayurveda Medicine degrees are allowed to prescribe allopathic drugs.
(Courtesy of Mail Today.)