Jaipur, May 15 (PTI) The Rajasthan government on Wednesday suspended a senior doctor of the Sawai Man Singh (SMS) Government Hospital in connection with the fake NOC for organ transplant case, officials said.
Dr Rajendra Bagdi was suspended and show cause notice issued to him under service rules, Rajasthan Health Minister Gajendra Singh Khinvsar told reporters here.
He said that notices were also issued to Dr Achal Sharma and Dr Rajeev Bagarhatta, who were removed from their posts of SMS hospital superintendent and SMS medical college principal, respectively, earlier this month.
Sharma and Bagarhatta were removed for not holding meetings of the state authorisation committee that issues no-objection certificates (NOC), the officials said.
The action came after an inquiry report on the fake NOC case was submitted to the government. The inquiry committee also found that 269 cases of transplantation were such in which the donor and receiver were not close relatives.
Also, out of the total transplants done in a year, 171 transplants of foreign citizens were done in four private hospitals.
Khinvsar said Bagdi, senior professor of surgery at the SMS hospital, was appointed coordinator of the state authorisation committee in April 2022. Meeting notices were found to be issued under his signature but the date and time of the meeting were not mentioned, the minister said.
“All these facts show that Dr Rajendra Bagdi was fully aware of the continuous receipt of applications for NOC. Despite this, meetings were not held and Dr Bagdi is primarily responsible for the meetings not being organised,” he said.
The case came to light in an inquiry report submitted to the government on the basis of which Bagdi was suspended and notices were issued, Khinvsar said .
He said that there was gross negligence and irregularities at various levels in the process related to human organ transplantation from 2020 to 2023.
“Irregularities and fraud have come to light since the time Dr Sudhir Bhandari was the principal and controller of the SMS Medical College. Complaints in this regard were also received from other states,” he said.
Bhandari, who was the vice chancellor of the Rajasthan University of Health Sciences (RUHS), resigned from his post after the government took action against Sharma and Bagarhatta.
He was the chairman of the steering committee constituted for ‘State Organ and Tissue Transplant Organization’ (SOTO).
The health minister accused him of doing several irregularities during the Congress’ tenure in Rajasthan.
He alleged that Bhandari did not take any action to nominate the representatives of the state government as per the guidelines of the national organ transplant programme in the composition of the steering committee of SOTO formed during his tenure as the SMS Medical College principal.
“This entire situation shows that after becoming the voice chancellor of RUHS, Dr Bhandari continued to dominate the work of SOTO,” he said.
On April 1, an Anti-Corruption Bureau team had arrested three people in connection with issuing fake NOC for organ transplant in lieu of money.
The organ transplant licenses of Fortis hospital, EHCC hospital and Manipal hospital were suspended after they were found to be carrying out transplants against the rules.
Police investigation is also going on against all three hospitals. PTI SDA ANB ANB
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