Published On : Fri, Jul 19th, 2019

NT Exclusive : There’s nothing noble about medical profession in Nagpur

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Nagpur: Medical professionals and doctors known for working in one of the noblest fields, recently have been in the news for wrong reasons in Nagpur. Many incidents have cropped up recently right from offering 20% commission to ambulance operators plying between borders of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra for bringing patients to them or trafficking away patients from Government Medical College and Hospital to private healthcare, the activity confirmed by Dean himself, city doctors have earned negative points for these acts. Few days back, a newborn reportedly met a painful death owing to negligence of hospital staff at Gandhibagh based prominent healthcare centre. However, the list of such apathetic attitude from hospital’s side has seen a giant leap in recent times, posing serious questions on the morality of the so called ‘noble’ profession.

Patients’ agony
When Nagpur Today, toured city’s bustling medical hubs Dhantoli and Ramdaspeth, we discovered most of the patients were sent to Orange City from the doctors in neigbouring Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh on the pretext of ‘you can only get cure here’ (the city based doctors they are referring to). Before sending them here, these doctors also don’t forget to first admit the patients for at least a week and siphon the money.

Double whammy
On condition of anonymity, the kin of a patient who belonged to Rewa in Madhya Pradesh told Nagpur Today, “Our patient is suffering from liver malfunction. The Rewa based doctor who referred us to Nagpur first admitted my younger brother and ran several tests. However, when he didn’t get to it, he referred us to Dhantoli based healthcare, after charging us of Rs 17,000.”

Only tests, no results!
Similarly a Chhindwara based patient said, “Our town doctor recommended Ramdaspeth based hospital saying that ‘this illness can be only cured in that specific hospital’. We are not that literate but owing to our patients’ head injury we didn’t even hesitate coming here. However, this hospital is only running tests till now.”

No benefit of govt scheme
A Chhattisgarh based family who was referred to city based healthcare narrated their ordeal that how they are running pillar to post to get benefit of Pradhan Mantri Ayushman Bharat Yojna here but hospital has deprived them of any sort of aid.

Can’t do anything!
On matter of 20% commission and patients referred to Orange City, Dr K B Tumane, DTO, Nagpur city said, “Although I’m not saying the allegations are baseless but we have not received any sort of written complaint regarding this matter, hence we can’t take any action. As far as recommending to doctors is concerned, there are vast gap of healthcare facilities between our neighboring states and Nagpur. I don’t think there’s much to think about,” quipped Dr Tumane.

Medical malpractice is there: Dean (GMCH)
“The economic growth of any city plays key role in attracting patients to it. Nagpur is equipped with all the essential healthcare and facilities hence any doctor don’t even hesitate while recommending the patients to the city. As far as recommending is concern, it is also part of his job to identify the patients and guide them to the suitable doctor. However, we can’t deny the fact of malpractice in the medical field which is against the ethics of medical profession,” said, Dr Sajal Mitra, Dean, GMCH.

By Shubham Nagdeve