JOIN US'Face action for signing fake medical certificate'
Doctors can now land in trouble for issuing medical certificates casually or in lieu of money. According to the Delhi Medical Council (DMC), the number of cases of fake medical certificates being issued are on the rise.
In a recent case, the DMC has ordered to strike off a doctor’s name from the existing medical list in Delhi for a month after he was found issuing a certificate for six months bedrest to a schoolteacher.
The complaint was forwarded to the medical body by the Department of Education of the state government.
When called for a meeting, the doctor claimed the teacher was suffering from spine problem.
“How can a child specialist advice on six months rest to somebody without referring the case to a specialist. The certificate says the woman suffers from a spine problem,” said Dr Girish Tyagi, Registrar, DMC.
“This raised suspicion in the department. Also, there is no serial number in the certificate which is a must to avoid manipulation of records,” Dr Tyagi added.
Every doctor is also required to maintain outdoor patient department (OPD) records or any investigation ordered, which was not done in this case.
Since the case was not referred to a specialist, the Department of Education was suspicious of the authenticity of the case.
The doctor’s name will be removed from the list on November 17. Every doctor needs to be registered with the DMC to practice in the city.
While some doctors issue certificates casually to appease known people, a few others issue certificates in lieu of money. Such cases are common with the DMC receiving several such complaints in the past few months.
The medical body has been receiving several complaints from courts where doctors have certified that the accused are unable to show up at the hearing because they are “physically unfit”.
In the past six months, at least eight such cases have been reported.
The DMC is planning to act more strictly on such doctors to avoid misuse of a medical document like a prescription or a certificate.
“It is difficult when qualified doctors prescribe bedrest randomly to the accused so that they can evade court hearings,” said Dr Tyagi.
“We removed a doctor from the list for a significant period of time after we found he was prescribing bedrest in the prescription itself. There was no separate certificate issued,” he added.