Sending out a firm signal to doctors who indulge in corrupt practices, the Medical Council of India (MCI) has ordered the removal of 27 doctors from the Indian Medical Register, barring them from practice for a period ranging from 3 to 5 years.
Two of them were removed from the registry for serving on the faculty of two medical colleges simultaneously. The remaining 25 have been penalised for posing as the full time faculty of Melmaruvathur Adiparasakthi Institute of Medical Sciences in Melmaruvathur, Tamil Nadu, to help its management get MCI approval for different courses.
The statutory body took serious view of a single college showing 25 teachers as permanent faculty, when none was recruited in full time capacity. These erring doctors hail from Maharashtra, Odisha, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Kerala, States which have seen the mushrooming of private medical colleges in the past decade.
Out of the 25 who have been delisted from the Registry, the majority (10) are from Maharashtra.
Out of the two doctors guilty of working for two hospitals at the same time, Ajit Kale from Maharashtra was found working for MGM Aurangabad and the Ahmadnagar Medical College in Maharashtra, simultaneously, while the other doctor, Deepak Kalra, was found working in the Agra Government Medical College and the Chintpurni Medical College in Pathankot, Punjab.
MCI directive to State Medical Councils
The MCI has asked the respective State Medical Councils to remove their names from the state medical registry for two years each.
During this period, they won’t be allowed to practise medicine.
The directions follow a CBI inquiry into the conduct of 35 doctors from all over India.
Ethics Committee ruling on the 25 doctors
The MCI Ethics Committee first issued show-cause notice to all the doctors accused of misrepresenting facts, following which it found them guilty of violating the Medical Code of Ethics.
The Ethics Committee ruled, “After taking into consideration the allegation contained in the CBI report, oral testimony and written statement of 25 doctors, the Committee concludes that the said doctors gave false and misleading information regarding their working in the medical college to the assessors during the college assessment.
“These doctors have committed professional misconduct in terms of Indian Medical Council (Professional Conduct, Etiquette and Ethics) Regulations, 2002.”
