Doctors go on strike demanding transfer of JJ Hospital's Dean

Nearly 4,000 post-graduate doctors from 18 medical colleges across Maharashtra today went on a strike demanding transfer of two senior doctors from the state-run J J Hospital here.
The Directorate of Medical Education, meanwhile, has recommended that government invoke Maharashtra Essential Services Maintenance Act (MESMA) to thwart the strike.
Since last one week, doctors have been demanding transfer of J J Hospital's Dean and noted eye surgeon Dr T P Lahane and her deputy Dr Ragini Parekh, head of the Ophthalmology department.
"As decided collectively, all 4,000 residents doctors from across the state have gone on an indefinite strike from 8 AM today and won't budge from their stand till the state government accepts our demand and gives an assurance in writing," a senior officer-bearer from the central wing of Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) said.

"We will be attending to patients under emergency services, but Out-Patient Departments (OPDs) have been shut in all public medical colleges from 8 AM today," he said.
"We will continue our protest till the state government transfers Lahane and Parekh as they are harassing students and not fit for their posts," he alleged.

Responding to a query that Directorate of Medical Education has recommended invoking MESMA against them, he said, "They should know that MESMA applies to full-time government staff, and we are trainee doctors. How can they impose MESMA on us."
However, state Directorate of Medical Education and Research Head Dr Pravin Shingare rejected the argument of the striking doctors.

"It is the prerogative of the state government to categorise the services that fall under the ambit of the Act. MESMA has been invoked in the past in so many cases against those who were not state government staff but used to render their services to residents of the state," Shingare told PTI.
"Government can declare that these services and its providers are under the MESMA, that's it," he said.
When contacted, a senior functionary of MCI admitted that
such practices "do happen" in various hospitals but are difficult to prevent, and at times "impossible" to check.
"There are hospitals which depict pictures of a person, before and after a surgery. It is impossible to check. Whatever actions the MCI ethics committee take in Delhi, the state councils defy.

"They get into collaboration with the particular doctor. What is the point of taking up the issue with the central MCI when you know the state would defy it and not listen to it. We are now putting pressure on the Central government and saying that the state councils must listen to the observations and punishments by the central MCI," he said.
Among other shocking revelations, the book describes how in the absence of serious ailments, a "pretence" of surgery is performed, a patient is given anesthesia and some stitches are put on the skin, to show that an operation has been done.

Nowadays doctors do not even record the patient's history properly, said Dr Punyabrata Goon, a General Practitioner in Kolkata. They just write out a list of investigations as they get a commission for doing that, he says.
"Almost all the laboratories in our area give 50 per cent commission and almost all the doctors accept these commissions. For many doctors, the money earned through commissions is much more than that earned from fees. In our area, the commission rates are: X-rays 25 per cent, and 33 per cent for MRIs and CT scans," he says.
A young doctor's lament, on him being pulled up by the CEO of a corporate hospital for "low conversion rate" of 15 per cent as opposed to 40 per cent fixed by the management is also recorded in the book.

Conversion rate means out of the total number of patients seen by the doctor, the percentage which are advised to undergo surgery or procedures.