Click to play videoBangalore: It took two children's deaths, killed due to wrong medication by a suspected fake doctor, to get Karnataka Health minister R Ashok into action.
Close on the heels of CNN-IBN's expose on fake doctors, Ashok in a surprise inspection found that the State's Ayurveda directorate has registered nearly 150 fake doctors.
Documents revealed that over the last ten years, a former registrar has been involved in giving away backdated certificates from a college that was closed 20 years ago.
“Some fake doctors collude with our Ayurveda board register. There were 150 fake doctors that had been registered in our Ayurveda and Unani board. That's why we decided to give this enquiry to Lokayukta,” says R Ashok.
But it's JSD Pani, the president of RTI Awareness Forum, who deserves credit for finding the quacks. Pani's petitions over the last four months under the Right to Information Act got him access to files of several doctors' histories. And the certificates at the board narrated a dubious story.
“The people who want to make this scam used a closed unit or a college name. They understand that a college certificate is valid for registration. The only way to get registered was to create certificate in old date,” says Pani.
The State'e Ayurveda board came under the scanner after Vadivelu and Radha filed a police complaint last week over the death of their children, following wrong medication by one Dr Chand Pasha.
A Lokayukta enquiry is some respite, as it would bring to book thousands of doctors practicing with fake certificates. But it's just the beginning because documents show that doctors registered there have come from other states like Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
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