A delegation of medical consultants, doctors and nephrologists met Maharashtra Health Minister Deepak Sawant on Saturday and said that the arrests in the kidney racket would adversely affect the transplant programmes across the country.
Representatives of the Mumbai Urology Society, the Mumbai Nephrology group, the Association of Medical Consultants (AMC) and the Indian Medical Association raised with the Minister the atmosphere of fear prevailing in the medical community, after the arrest of their colleagues in a case of fraud regarding a renal transplant at the L.H Hiranandani hospital.
The group requested the Minister to bring out an urgent resolution to absolve doctors of the responsibility of verifying the authenticity of the documents submitted for kidney transplant.
Minister’s assuranceThe Minister said he understood the problem and would consult the Chief Minister and the Law and Judiciary department for a solution.
“We categorically told him this episode [the arrests] was having an adverse impact on the organ donation and transplant programmes across the country, for which the medical fraternity had been working hard. The government has promised a positive action in seven days,” said another doctor who did not wish to be named.
The medical fraternity was anguished about the humiliating arrest of their colleagues when they were already cooperating with the police in the probe, the doctors told the Minister.
“We now believe anybody and everybody can be in the same boat. This fear is making transplant procedures difficult because we are being treated like criminals. Our main grouse is that the job of checking the documents should not be on the treating doctors,” said Dr. Sudhir Naik, who was representing the AMC.
In judicial custodyThe CEO and four doctors of the hospital, who were arrested on August 9, have been sent to judicial custody till August 26.
