Many doctors in India with fake degrees... hope they don't come to Singapore...
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Beware of quacks even in pvt hospitals
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/95637/India/Beware+of+quacks+even+in+pvt+hospitals.html
The menace of quackery appears to have spread to reputed nursing homes and large corporate hospitals all over the city, investigations by Delhi's medical regulatory authority have revealed.
A drive launched by the Delhi Medical Council (DMC) found quacks with fake degrees and fake licences working in leading corporate hospitals.
The hospitals include Max Balaji Hospital, Dharamshila Cancer Hospital, Batra Hospital, Rockland Hospital as well as other private hospitals - Mata Chanan Devi, Sant Parmanand, Sundar Lal Jain, Sri Action Balaji Medical Institute, Jeevan Mala, Ayushman, Shanti Mukund, Deepak Memorial and Jeevan Anmol.
This is shocking because so far the presence of quacks was thought to be a problem only in slums and rural areas of Delhi, and restricted to privately run clinics or dispensaries. The fact that quacks have invaded even large corporate hospitals and some of the well known older hospitals could send shivers down spines of citizens.
In the past one year, about 25 quacks posing as doctors were found working in over one dozen private hospitals. All of them have been suspended by respective hospitals and FIRs have been registered in area police stations by DMC. Many of the cases are currently being heard in different courts.
"It only shows that the problem of quackery is much more serious than we would have thought," said council secretary Dr Girish Tyagi. " Now I suspect there could be more fake doctors working in the city's hospitals and nursing homes." Most of those caught in private hospitals were working as assistants to senior doctors or as Resident Medical Officers ( RMOs). Though junior in rank, RMOs handle important tasks in a hospital when patients are admitted in emergency and are the only doctors on night shifts.
They also maintain contact with patients in the absence of seniors and specialists.
The drive was launched last year after several cases of fake doctors came to light at a private hospital in east Delhi. In fact, the hospital - Shanti Mukund - approached the council on its own following suspicion about some of its medical staff. It sent certificates of registration of eight doctors to DMC for verification.
Seven of them were found to be forged. " The shocking aspect was that these people had forged DMC registration certificates," recalled Tyagi.
After this, the council wrote to all hospitals and nursing homes registered with the Delhi Health Services to get their doctors verified with it. Many hospitals complied and sent copies of registration certificates and licences of their doctors for verification.
A close scrutiny of these documents and searches in the DMC database - which contains details of about 45,000 doctors - led to the discovery of quacks in several corporate hospitals.
Most other big hospitals did not have any quacks on their rolls.
"The problem is that most hospitals, in a hurry to recruit doctors, don't even check original MBBS degrees before appointing doctors. It is a clear case of negligence on the part of these hospitals," Tyagi said. " If a fake doctor is operating from a hospital's premise, it points to illegal activity." He said the council is now planning to extend the drive to government hospitals as well.
"Quackery is definitely not limited to slums. We have found quacks operating from posh localities such as Greater Kailash, and even advertising on television and on the internet," pointed out Dr Anil Bansal, head of the anti- quackery cell of the Indian Medical Association ( IMA), a top body of doctors. " Big hospitals also hire unqualified doctors and often with specialist degrees and diplomas which may not have been recognised by the
Medical Council of India." Bansal estimates that the number of quacks operating in the Delhi region would be close to 40,000 which is almost the same number as registered practitioners of allopathic, Ayurveda and homeopathic systems.
In some cases, the local police is found protecting quacks.
Among the hospitals that sent their staff's papers for verification was Munjal Maternity and Nursing Centre in Shashtri Nagar. It sent a list of eight doctors, but held back papers of one Darshan Kaur. The papers that were sent were all found to be in order. This gave rise to suspicion, following which the DMC registered a case against her in a local police station. A few days later, the police informed the council that since the lady in question was not traceable the case was being closed.
Then a DMC official called up the nursing home posing as a patient and sought an appointment with Kaur, who was said to be missing. An appointment was promptly given. Kaur was finally arrested after Tyagi informed the joint commissioner of police about the local cops shielding Kaur, who turned out to be wife of the doctor who owned the nursing home.
Along with the police, Tyagi said, the judiciary also needs to be sensitised about the issue.
"We have evolved procedures to simplify the executive and judicial process to book offenders. As a result many quacks are being denied bail," he said. A request has also been made to the Delhi High Court through the state government to appoint special magistrates for a speedy trial against quacks.
