Kidneys For Sale: The Great Indian Scam

Hiranandani Hospital’s chief executive officer, medical director and three doctors have been charged in the case.

The posh Dr L H Hiranandani hospital in the suburbs of Mumbai has recently come under the scanner for illegal kidney transplants. (Photo courtesy: Facebook/Hiranandani hospital)

It was only in June this year that a massive kidney racket was unearthed in the capital city, at one of India’s top private hospitals – Indraprashta Apollo Hospital. Among those arrested were two personal secretaries of the doctors, along with the touts who allegedly managed the entire scam. This spurred investigations across hospitals in Delhi and around the country.

A month later, it was a case of déjà vu. Only this time, the kidney donation scandal rocked one of Mumbai’s top private hospitals, Hiranandani Hospital. The racket was exposed when the police were tipped off that a kidney transplant operation had been scheduled on 14 July at the Powai-based hospital, where the donor and the recipient were not related.

The hospital’s chief executive officer, medical director, three doctors, the kidney donor, recipient, and agents were arrested by the Mumbai Police on the basis of a report by the Director of State Health Services Department.

On 18 August, the Andheri Metropolitan Magistrate’s court granted bail to the hospital’s CEO Surjit Chatterjee, medical director Anurag Naik and the doctors. The man who blew the lid off the racket is a senior leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party and a Mumbai-based activist, Mahesh Tanna.

In a video filmed by Tanna’s associates, which BloombergQuint has not been able to verify, Tanna confronts the medical director at Hiranandani Hospital during the surgery.

Read the full BloombergQuint report here.