Gurgaon: The private healthcare company that ran a centre at Faridabad‘s BK Civil Hospital, where an under-qualified doctor committed an identity theft and operated on patients for months as a cardiologist, saw another centre – in Hisar – blacklisted in 2022 over fake bills. That, however, had no bearing on its contracts to run hospitals under the public-private-partnership (PPP) model in other parts of the state.
Now, even as allegations of serious malpractice at the Faridabad centre are under investigation by the anti-corruption bureau (ACB), officials said talks continue with Meditirina Hospital Pvt Ltd to restart operations there.
The heart centre at BK Civil Hospital’s fourth floor was shut abruptly this Feb, four months after ACB filed an FIR under sections 120B criminal conspiracy,420 (cheating), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence), 203 (giving false information) and 467, 468 and 471 (forgery) of IPC on Oct 29, 2024, based on a complaint filed by a lawyer. A ‘Temporaily Closed’ sign now hangs outside its main door. The lone caretaker, who says he was hired 10 days ago, says he has no idea when the centre will reopen.
A second FIR related to the Meditirina-run heart centre in Faridabad was filed on June 10 against SGM Nagar police station in Faridabad against the fake cardiologist and others.
Allegations of malpractice made by the lawyer, Sanjay Gupta, in the Oct FIR include reusing equipment such as needles and catheters in surgeries. Meditirina signed a contract with the state govt to run the heart centre in Faridabad in 2018. Meditirina also runs centres at Panchkula, Gurgaon and Ambala Cantt in Haryana, at Kollam, Palakkad and Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, and at Jamshedpur and Chas-Bokaro in Jharkhand.
Doctors at BK Civil hospital’s other departments said Meditirina staffers took all patients’ medical records, leaving them with no way to continue treatments for regulars at the heart centre. “Even emergency cardiac cases are being referred elsewhere. We are helpless,” a senior physician said. The hospital does not have a separate cardiology department.
Meena Devi, a Ballabhgarh resident who took her father to the heart centre regularly for checks, told TOI, “My father needs follow-ups after his stent procedure. Private hospitals are beyond our reach.”
The allegations
Gupta told TOI he had to approach police because multiple complaints to the hospital management, the district’s chief medical officer, and the health department did not elicit a response. He said it was in June 2024 that some patients’ families and a former centre head hired by Meditirina reached out to him for help. The FIR lists the names of 39 patients who were allegedly treated with re-used devices.
“According to guidelines of Medical Council of India and World Health Organization, reused wires, balloons and other equipment should not be used in the treatment of cardiac patients. Doing so poses a serious risk to the patient’s life” the FIR reads.
The complaint also alleges that Meditirina overcharged patients, issuing bills that exceeded govt-approved rates. Inflated reimbursement claims were also allegedly made in cases of patients who were covered under Ayushman Bharat or other schemes. Seven patients — four from the below-poverty line (BPL) category and three Ayushman Bharat beneficiaries — were named in the FIR, with their bills totaling to almost Rs 14 lakh.
Mansingh Bhati, who was the centre head at the facility from 2018 to 2021, said he quit the job because of pressure to force doctors into reusing equipment and raising bill amounts. “Usually, the centre heads were forced to do all the dirty work. We were told to raise fake bills and bills of patients who were exempted. We were also told to use the same equipment again and again on multiple patients,” he said.
“ACB started investigating the case. As a result, govt halted its payments to the centre in Dec, and in Feb, the company abandoned the centre,” Gupta added.
The Meditirina CMD did not respond to multiple requests from TOI for a comment.
The fake cardiologist
While the centre was under scanned for malpractice, some patients in Jan this year found out that Dr Pankaj Mohan Sharma was masquerading as a cardiologist, though he was an MBBS graduate. Patients only found this out after reaching out to a practising cardiologist in the city, Dr Pankaj Mohan, whose identity and registration number was being used by the fake Dr Sharma.
Dr Mohan filed a complaint with Indian Medical Association (IMA) the same month and issued a legal notice to Dr Sharma.
Asked for his degree by the hospital, Dr Sharma stopped reporting to the heart care centre in Feb. By then, he had operated on 50 patients, including some who underwent critical surgeries.
Ram Krishan, who was among those to reach out to Gupta, told TOI his father was 76 years old and had to get a stent in Jan 2025. The surgery, he added, was done by Dr Sharma. “The procedure went wrong. The stent was inserted at 12pm on Jan 11, and he passed away as there were issues during the procedure. I didn’t know at the time that the doctor was unqualified,” Krishan said.
Other than Dr Sharma, the FIR filed in June names four Meditirina officials, including its chief managing director Dr N Pratap Kumar.
Asked about the cases, Haryana director general of health services Manish Bansal told TOI the department is looking into each issue separately. “We are trying to resolve the matter. We are also in talks with the (Meditirina) management to restart the centre, keeping in mind the patients.
There are various issues that need to be handled carefully in the case before we go any further,” Bansal said. Faridabad’s chief medical officer Dr Jayant Ahuja said ACB is probing the malpractice case.
“The partner hospital walked out. An ACB investigation is currently underway. I can’t comment on the matter as I don’t have any records,” he said. According to a govt official, the Kerala-based Meditirina’s centre that was blacklisted for producing fake bills used to run out of Hisar’s Maharaja Agrasen Medical College.
