40,000 quacks in Kerala

According to the state unit of the IMA, there are some 40,000 quacks practising modern medicine across the state, especially in villages. Three such fake doctors were arrested by the police in Malappuram district on Friday and one in Pathanamthitta.

Meet “Dr Jagadish” who has been a practising doctor for the last 11 years in a hospital at Kuttipuram in Malappuram district. According to the police, Jagadish had passed only 10th standard, that too in the second attempt. In the first instance, he failed when he got only 136 marks out of 600. But he made it the next time with 241 marks.
Jagadish managed to secure a diploma in homeopathy which made him eligible for a job in modern medicine at a hospital. The police are now investigating the state of patients who had consulted him.

S A Jaleel, who was running a clinic at Tanur, was the first to fall into the police net. A policeman, who approached him for treating some minor ailments, grew suspicious of his behaviour and cross-checked his registration number with the government records to find that it belongs to someone else.

The IMA has now formed an anti-quackery wing to check the growing menace and to report it to the government agencies to curb them. The police have already launched a crackdown on quacks.

According to Dr Abdul Khadar, who heads the anti-quackery wing, there were 40,000 registered allopathic practitioners in the state. “But our preliminary estimation is that the number of quacks exceeds this number. The problem with the law is that these fake doctors get away with a mild punishment for impersonation. This is not effective and the government should pay more attention to the menace,” he said.