The Mumbai police is likely to arrest two more doctors in connection with a probe of an alleged kidney transplant racket which came to light last month, reports The Times of India.
The transplant racket that took place at the premises of the Hiranandani hospital in Mumbai has seen five doctors been taken into custody till now.
The hospital announced they would now conduct a forensic audit of the transplant cases there.
The Board of Trustees at Hiranandani Hospital have appointed Ernst & Young (E) to implement a stringent audit of the transplant cases conducted at the hospital.the hospital said in a statement
The five doctors who are being questioned by the police are CEO Sujit Chatterjee, medical director Anurag Naik, urologists Prakash Shetty and Mukesh Shah and nephrologist Mukesh Shete. The arrests were made on the basis of a report submitted by the Directorate of Health Services (DHS) to Mumbai Police Monday.
As an interim measure, Dr Arun Shetty has been named as the in-charge Medical Director till Chatterjee resumes.
So far, a total of 15 people, including the five medicos, have been arrested in the case. A few more cases have surfaced now and the police are probing around 30 transplants conducted at the hospital in the past one year.
The five held will remain in custody till Saturday.
Medical Fraternity Reacts
Mumbai’s medical fraternity however has not taken kindly to the news of these arrests. Members of the fraternity have come in support of the under fire doctors and raised questions about the role of the authorities probing the relationship between donor and recipient in organ transplants.
The racket first came to light when the police were tipped off to discrepancies in the paper work filed for a kidney transplant operation scheduled for 14 July at the privately-run Hiranandani Hospital where the donor and recipient were not related.
(With inputs from The Times of India and IANS)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)