Mumbai: Accused of 'fraud, cheating, and medical negligence', a Bombay Hospital doctor is facing an inquiry by the Maharashtra Medical Council (MMC), which has now served him with a show-cause notice.
Filing a complaint to the State Medical Council, a family hailing from Bhandup accused the concerned doctor of not performing one of the three surgeries as agreed with them, reports HT.
The complainant on March 4 also filed a police complaint against the hospital and the doctor. Meanwhile, the Bombay Hospital is already conducting an internal inquiry into the matter.
Confirming that the investigation in this regard is underway, the administrator of MMC, Dr. Vinky Rughwani informed the Daily, "We sent a show cause notice to Dr ***, a general surgeon, on Thursday and sought his explanation against the complaint filed by ***. We have also asked him to submit all medical documents - test reports, surgery notes etc. - within 15 days."
He further informed that the Council obtained the relevant documents from the complainant. Soon, MMC will schedule a hearing after receiving an explanation and the relevant documents from the doctor.
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As per the latest media report by Hindustan Times, approaching the MMC, the complainant accused the concerned doctor of fraud, cheating, and medical negligence. Allegedly, the complainant and his wife met the doctor on January 29 and agreed to get his wife operated on for three surgeries- gallbladder removal, hernia, and repair of diastasis recti.
The condition of diastasis recti refers to an increased distance between the rectus abdominis muscles at the midline. As per the complainant, even though they were under the impression that the patient underwent all of those three surgeries, the doctor allegedly confessed to them 12 days later that he had not conducted the diastasis recti repait surgery.
Commenting on the matter, the complainant told HT, "My wife is still in trauma. The doctor cheated us by not informing us about not performing the third surgery. He and his assistants in Bombay Hospital acted deceitfully and mentioned three surgeries in hospital notes and summaries."
Meanwhile, the doctor refused to comment on the allegations and informed the Daily that he did not receive any show cause notice from MMC.
HT adds that this is one of the 692 pending cases that the MMC is yet to decide. Dr. Rughwani took over the charge of MMC administrator around two weeks ago. He informed that they are fast-tracking the process of hearing the complaints.
"Since most are cases of medical negligence, we will seek the help of experts from respective fields. For example, if the complaint is related to gynaecology, we will get a gynaecologist’s help. We plan to hold a hearing every week to clear the backlog of cases," he added.
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