A day after the case of an alleged illegal organ transplantation came into light at city-based hospital, District Collector K. Bhaskar on Friday formed a three-member committee to look into the issue. The case has also raised questions whether such malpractices are taking place in other private hospitals in the city.
“A three-member committee comprising the District Medical & Health Officer, District Co-Ordinator of Hospital Services (DCHS) and the Superintendent of King George Hospital (KGH) has been formed to investigate the alleged kidney racket case”, Mr. Bhaskar said.
The Collector said the committee would go into all the transplant cases done by the hospital to start with, and then would look into all hospitals that had been performing organ transplants in Visakhapatnam city.
Mr. Bhaskar said as several in-patients were being treated at the hospital, they were unable to take any immediate action on its functioning. He said that once the patients were discharged, a decision would be taken on what action could be initiated.
Police check records
According to sources, the city police have been continuing with the investigation in the kidney racket case. On Friday, police teams of Maharanipeta reportedly checked the records of the transplantations and a few other surgeries in the hospital.
The M.R. Peta police arrested two doctors, M Manjunath (34), a Ayurvedic doctor from Bengaluru, and D Prabhakar (35) on Thursday on the charges of illegal transplantation of kidney. The incident came to light after the complainant, who is also organ donor, approached the police, claiming that he was cheated in terms of payment.
It is learnt that a team of city police is about to leave for Bangalore, where two other accused are reportedly present.