The issue of alleged PMJAY racket, stemming from the death of two beneficiaries at Ahmedabad’s Khyati Hospital last year, echoed inside and outside the Assembly on Monday with the Opposition Congress holding a protest and demanding CBI probe into the matter.
Rejecting the demand, Cabinet Minister for Health Rushikesh Patel told the House that investigation in the case was being conducted in a transparent manner as he insisted that people’s trust in the government has remained intact. The investigation in the case is being carried out by the Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) of the Ahmedabad City Police.
During the Question House, leader of the Congress Legislative Party, Gujarat, Amit Chavda also demanded fast-track court proceedings in the case as he raised a query on the financial assistance received by Khyati Multispeciality Hospital in the last two years under PMJAY Ayushman Yojana along with action taken by the state government against those responsible for the alleged scam.
“Though we had a foolproof system for the PMJAY scheme but after the Khyati Hospital case surfaced, the state government formed SoPs (Standard Operating Procedures) and an amendment to the Gujarat Clinical Establishment (Registration and Regulation) Act 2021 was passed along with other action already taken in the case. We do not want to protect anyone and the work of the police and home department is commendable. There is no need for a CBI investigation as the investigations are conducted in a very transparent and unbiased manner,” Patel informed the House. He said the trust of the people of Gujarat is intact in the government, adding PMJAY scheme was not affected by the case.
Out of 45 total starred questions tabled in the House during the question hour on Monday, around seven were related to Khyati Hospital and the PMJAY scheme, raised by Congress MLAs.
The Congress legislators also staged a protest through a play outside the Gujarat Assembly on the alleged Khyati Hospital scam, highlighting the “corruption and suffering of patients”. While a few Congress party MLAs played the role of doctors, others donned the hat of patients to enact the alleged scam.
Chavda said a systematic network has been running across the state for years to earn commissions worth crores from the scheme.
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As per the government records shared in the House, before the Khyati incident, around 52 hospitals and three doctors were suspended in the state for irregularities under the PMJAY scheme. With the incident coming to light, 22 hospitals and six doctors were suspended. At present, 28 hospitals in the state are blacklisted. So far, a total of Rs 19.9 crore has been imposed as penalty.
“Under the Indian Penal Code, sections including murder, forgery, and cheating have been imposed against all these criminals. The government has filed a chargesheet within the stipulated time and has made efforts to ensure that all the criminals are punished at the earliest. A supplementary chargesheet will also be filed against the hospital owner, Kartik Patel, soon,” the Minister apprised the House.
Regarding action taken against Khyati Hospital, the Minister said that after the incident came to the notice of the Health Department, a team of cardiologists from UN Mehta Hospital, an expert team from Sola Civil Hospital, and the State Anti-Fraud Unit was formed to conduct a detailed investigation.
The team examined the records of all 19 cases. The case papers of the admitted patients were examined along with digital records of angiography and angioplasty. It was revealed that in most cases, consent of patients and their relatives was not taken for surgery, minister Patel said. Also, review of medical records of patients revealed that angiography or angioplasty was not required in most of the patients, no specific cause of death was mentioned on the records and prima facie, the patients were not found to have had any serious heart disease, he added. It was found that they were not given any kind of understanding or information that angiography and angioplasty would be performed, he said.
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After considering the preliminary findings of the team, the payment of claims to the tune of Rs 3.17 crore to the hospital was stopped, the hospital was permanently de-empaneled from the scheme and Dr Prashant Vajirani, the visiting cardiologist, was permanently dismissed from the scheme, Patel informed the House. Gujarat Medical Council (GMC) has cancelled the licence of Dr Vajirani and Dr Sanjay Patoliya for a period of three years.
‘Corrective measures’
Listing out corrective measures taken to prevent a recurrence of an incident like the one at Khyati Hospital, raised by Congress as well as BJP MLAs, Minister Patel stated that all hospitals affiliated to the scheme will now have to seek permission from the Chief District Health Officer to organise medical camps. Besides, the presence of a government representative is a must in the camps.
Notably, the patients on whom the alleged unnecessary surgeries were performed were selected from a health camp organised at a village in Mehsana in October. Two of them died the next day, hours after the surgery was performed on them at the Khyati Hospital.
Listing other steps, the minister said a provision was made that CDHO/MOH (Chief District Health Officer/Medical Officer of Health) should conduct audit visits to at least two hospitals on a monthly basis. The insurance company also made more specialists and super specialists available and intensified desk audits and field audits, Patel said.
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A provision has been made for mandatory video consent in various procedures, including angiography.
Permission of CDHO and presence of government representative has been ensured to organise medical camps to prevent recurrence of such incidents.
State Anti-Fraud Unit (SAFU) has been further strengthened to monitor the treatment-related activities intensively and 43 teams have been formed from government and GMERS medical colleges to prevent frauds, he said.
Provision has been made for audit visits of at least two hospitals in a month by CDHO/MOH. New SoP has been implemented for Cardiology, Oncology, Neonatal Care and TKR/THR (Total Knee and Hip Replacement), the minister said.
