Six Doctors, Hospital Owner Booked for Cheating in Indian Hospital

A man in Gurgaon moved a court to book the owner and six doctors for cheating and other charges alleging Fortis Memorial Research Institute had not conducted tests on his daughter properly. Fortis Sunday said it would comment after studying the police complaint.

Owner Malvinder Mohan Singh and doctors Sanjeev K. Choudhary, Neeraj Parkash, Ritu Chadha, Nandini Vasdev, Vineet Pant and Abhinav Singhal have been booked for breach of trust, cheating, criminal conspiracy and some other sections of the Indian Penal Code.

The complainant moved the court saying the hospital had caused him and his family mental trauma by generating wrong test reports of his four-year-old daughter which indicated she was gravely ill and even after they were disproved, refused to admit their error.

Siddharth Punia, a resident of DLF-5 area in Sector 54, told the district court that his daughter Rutvi complained of joint pain in November, and was taken to an orthopaedics specialist at Fortis, who referred the case to a paediatric rheumatologist at Delhi's Sir Gangaram Hospital as there was no clinical finding of any abnormality.

The doctors found the child normal after clinical examination but suggested some more tests.

The family got the tests done at the Fortis SRL Lab here in December, but were shocked to see the report putting Rutvi's lactate dehydrogenase count at 610 (against the biological reference range of 81-234), indicating her body tissues were disintegrating.

Possible causes could be lethal diseases like hemolysis and other disorders including cancer, meningitis, encephalitis, acute pancreatitis, and HIV etc.

Punia said that on the basis of the report, the child had to undergo many more tests, which again came out normal.

Another lactate dehydrogenase test put the count at 542 against the biological reference range of 313-618, which clearly showed Rutvi's condition was normal, he said.

Punia said they sought clarification from Fortis Hospital authorities but alleged that they were made to wait and sent from one official to another, and when they protested, threatened with eviction.

He said that Neeraj Prakash generated another report where the reference range was revised to 313-618, but did not answer any queries about the previous report and the unnecessary subjection of the child to harmful tests.

He contended that due to one wrong report, the family had to undergo acute mental trauma and the child was wrongfully exposed to harmful radiations, whose after-effects are still unknown. He said Rutvi was still traumatised and afraid to go to hospital.

The court has directed police to register a case, investigate the matter and submit a report on or before Jan 25.

"We are investigating the case," police officer Vijay Kumar told IANS.

Meanwhile, an official spokesperson for Fortis said: "We have just got the information and are yet to know the contents of the complaint."

"However, we would like to assure the relatives that the diagnostic results and scans in respect of the patient are accurate, among the most benign and well under the safety limits prescribed," he said.

Source: IANS