Show cause notice sent to Bombay Hospital doctor who failed to perform one of three surgeries

MMC serves show cause notice to Bombay Hospital doctor accused of not performing agreed surgery, pending cases to be fast-tracked with expert help.

The Maharashtra Medical Council (MMC) has served a show cause notice on Bombay Hospital doctor who is accused by a family from Bhandup of not performing one of the three surgeries as agreed with them.

Show cause notice sent to Bombay Hospital doctor who failed to perform one of three surgeries

“We sent a show cause notice to Dr MM Begani, a general surgeon, on Thursday and sought his explanation against the complaint filed by Anil Lahoti. We have also asked him to submit all medical documents - test reports, surgery notes etc. - within 15 days,” said Dr Vinky Rughwani, administrator of MMC.

Rughwani further said they have got the relevant documents from the complainant and will schedule a hearing after they have received an explanation and documents from the doctor.

HT on February 28 reported that Lahoti approached MMC against Dr Begani, accusing him of fraud, cheating, and medical negligence. The couple first met him on January 29 and agreed to get Lahoti’s wife operated on for three surgeries — gallbladder removal, hernia, and repair of diastasis recti, a separation in the abdomen that occurs when the tissue between the rectus abdominis muscles stretches or tears at the central vertical line. Lahoti claimed that though they were under the impression that she underwent all three surgeries Dr Begani confessed to them 12 days later that he had not performed the surgery to repair the diastasis recti.

“My wife is still in trauma. The doctor cheated us by not informing us about not performing the third surgery. He and his assistants in Bombay Hospital acted deceitfully and mentioned three surgeries in hospital notes and summaries,” Lahoti said.

Refusing to comment on Lahoti’s allegations, Dr Begani said he has not received any show cause notice from MMC.

Lahoti’s complaint is one of the 692 pending cases MMC plans to hear in the coming days. Dr Rughwani, who took over as MMC administrator two weeks ago, said they are fast-tracking hearing on the complaints.

“Since most are cases of medical negligence, we will seek the help of experts from respective fields. For example, if the complaint is related to gynaecology, we will get a gynaecologist’s help. We plan to hold a hearing every week to clear the backlog of cases,” he said.

MMC, a quasi-judicial body responsible for regulating medical education and ethics in the state, oversees approximately 1.8 lakh registered doctors, with around 9,000 new registrations annually.