The Medical Council of India (MCI), a statutory body with the responsibility of protecting and promoting the health and safety of the public by ensuring proper standards in the practice of medicine has cracked the whip on some medical professionals this year.We take a look at these.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this year, there were some major cases against doctors who were acted against by the Medical Council of India, here we review some of these cases and their back stories.

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Suspension of orthopaedic doctor from Bombay Hospital

THE CASE

A patient had complained about the treatment she had received, and Dr. Muralilal Saraf’s license was found to have been lapsed. The MCI has often stated that additional qualifications after MBBS need to be registered with the MCI. The MCI had also started an amnesty scheme in 2012 for doctors to pay a fine and register their qualifications. The MCI hence acted tough and suspended his license for five years since he had failed to take advantage of the amnesty scheme.

WHAT THE MCI DID?

The council was acting on a complaint made in 2014 by former financial consultant Nandini Suchde, who said in her complaint that her mother had suffered and ultimately died due to the negligence of eight doctors attached to Bombay Hospital, including Saraf, who heads its orthopaedic department. While the MCI found the other doctors not guilty, it lambasted Dr. Saraf’s lapsed registration. The MCI committee approved a March 2017 decision of its ethics committee against Saraf.

Medical practitioners termed the Medical Council of India's order, suspending a senior doctor's registration for five years for his failure to renew his registration, as harsh and unfair. Some doctors have noted that this is not something which warrants such a harsh punishment since a lapse of registration would not be equivalent to a lack of qualifications. However, on the other hand, some doctors note that the procedure and laws are in place and that when there are laws stipulating it, there is no excuse for anyone to flout them and then rely on technicalities. The complainant, however, is still not satisfied and intends to pursue the case through other means.

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MCI suspends eight doctors in MP

Eight doctors were involved in running unethical drug trial on patients without their consent.

THE CASE 

After a prolonged legal battle which ran for nearly seven years, the MCI has suspended eight doctors at the government-run Mahatma Gandhi Medical College (MGMC) for their involvement in unethical drug trials.

MCI has been receiving many complaints regarding unethical drug trials since many years. In this case, it is alleged that these trials affected nearly 2,000 patients out of which 81 had side effects and 35 allegedly died during the trials.The matter is pending in the Supreme Court. The MP government had initiated a departmental probe against six doctors in 2012. Besides that, the senior MGMC management was under the scanner for conducting these trials without appropriate regulatory mechanisms. The MGMC has been challenged in the Supreme Court for throwing clinical trial norms to the wind and a petition is pending in the Supreme Court

According to Rajya Sabha data tabled in 2012, it was alleged that 2,163 patients died in India due to clinical trials since 2007 and out of these, 32 had died at MGMC.

The tainted doctors who were under investigation were Maharaja Yashwantrao Hospital (MYH) superintendent Dr. V.S. Paul, former superintendent Dr. Ramgulam Rajdan, Dr. Anil Bharani and Dr. Shish Patel of the general medicine department, paediatricians Dr. Hemant Jain, Dr. Ujjwal Sardesai, Dr. Pali Rastogi and Dr. Abhay Paliwal.

 WHAT THE MCI DID?

The Ethical Committee of the MCI issued the order to suspend the doctors including the superintendent and former superintendent for a period of three months. 

 

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A team of seven doctors in Kolkata found guilty of negligence

THE CASE

A 35-year old man, a recent Ph.D. graduate, and son of a retired bank executive had suffered a simple fall from the stairs and had a ruptured vessel in his abdomen, the doctors ignored the serious internal bleeding which unfortunately led to his death.

WHAT THE MCI DID?

A team of seven doctors including Drs. Ravi Bhardwaj, Prasenjit Sarkar, Debraj Roy, Prasun Halder, Atul Bajpayee and Arindam Sarkar of ILS Hospital in Dumdum, Kolkata were found guilty of negligence for Roy’s death.

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Although doctors in India are some of the best professionals, the profession also has cases like these when the MCI has to crack the whip on doctors for improper professional conduct.