Uterus scam: Medical body yet to take action against doctors

Patna: Even though the Patna high court was informed through an affidavit last week that Medical Council of India (MCI) has taken action against doctors and hospitals involved in uterus scam, the fact remains that the body regulating registration of doctors in the country has not yet taken even cognizance of the matter .
While hearing a petition filed by Veterans' Forum for Transparency in Public Life last Friday, the high court had also directed the state government to take action against the officials involved in the scam.
The scam pertains to unwanted removal of uterus of 703 women to extract money allotted under Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) in at least 12 districts of Bihar in 2012.
FIRs have already been registered against 13 accused doctors. The state government, through respective DMs, had asked the MCI to cancel registration of 17 hospitals and 33 accused doctors. While the then DMs of Saran and Samastipur had issued the order way back in 2013, other DMs wrote to the MCI in April 2016.
The Bihar representative of MCI's ethics committee, Dr Rajiva Ranjan, however, claimed that the matter was reported to the council only a year back. "The case was referred to the ethics committee five-six months back. We will decide next course of action in our upcoming meeting," Ranjan told TOI on Wednesday. Incidentally, when the Bihar Human Rights Commission (BHRC) had announced a compensation of Rs 15 crore in all to the victims in April 2016, Rajan had told TOI that the MCI would take action against the accused doctors "soon".
Meanwhile, petitioner's counsel in the high court, Dinu Kumar, said if the MCI delayed in taking action against the doctors, a fresh petition would be filed.
Strangely, two hospitals of Saran district - Jeevandeep Hospital and Tripathi Nursing Home - against whom FIRs were registered in 2013 for committing "criminal fraud" and taking undue benefit of RSBY, had been selected by the state labour department for RSBY registration in 2015. Accordingly, the central government cleared the names of the two hospitals on the recommendation of the state government. The petition, which was disposed of by the high court last week, had also questioned the basis on which the two hospitals were selected for RSBY services. It also contended that the hospitals were not registered under Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act (CEA) which was adopted by the state government in 2013.
Officer-on-special duty (OSD) in health department Shankar Prasad said on Wednesday though the Centre has specified the facilities a hospital require for registration under RSBY, it has not made registration under CEA mandatory for hospitals to qualify for the health scheme. He, however, said the government would now recommend the names of only such hospitals to the Centre for RSBY registration which are registered under CEA.
The OSD said the DMs concerned have been asked to identify the officials involved in uterus scam so that punitive action could be taken against them. "The health department has already forwarded the file to home department for payment of compensation to the victims," Prasad said.
Shankar Prasad, however, added that no decision has yet been taken on the pensioners' plea of recovering compensation amount from the "erring" officials.
The BHRC had directed the government to pay a compensation of Rs 2.5 lakh each to those in the age group of 20 to 40 years and Rs 1.5 lakh each to those in the age group of 40 years and above for "unwanted" uterus removal.