Sassoon Hospital doctor caught dumping disabled patient by roadside; suspended after outrage

According to the complaint filed by social activist Dadasaheb Gaikwad, the accused doctor and an unidentified staffer of Sassoon had taken the patient out and abandoned him in a secluded location in Yerawada after transporting him there in an autorickshaw. Gaikwad alleged that this is not the first time patients were abandoned in this manner and called for a thorough investigation in the matter. “Similar things have happened multiple times and I have written to the Sasson authorities in the past,” Gaikwad said.

A day after Dr Adi Kumar was suspended for his alleged role in abandoning a patient in a secluded area,hospital authorities have issued a show cause notice to Dr Pravin Londhe, the head of the unit under whom the patient was admitted. Hospital authorities have also started an enquiry into the incident.

Congress MLA Ravindra Dangekar raised the matter after the videos of the doctor abandoning the man were shared widely on social media.

The case, which was earlier registered at Yerawada police station, has now been transferred to Bundgarden police station, under whose jurisdiction the hospital falls. “As part of the probe into this incident, we will also try to establish whether similar things have happened in the past and determine the hospital staffers involved in it.” said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone 2) Smartana Patil.

According to the police, they have registered a case under Section 125 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), which pertains to endangering the life and personal safety of others.

Gaikwad, who runs an organisation that works for the welfare of the homeless and destitute, said he had noticed that some of the patients he had helped get admitted to Sassoon Hospital for treatment could not be found when he went on follow-up visits.

“I saw that some of the patients, especially those with serious ailments and disabilities, who we admitted were disappearing from the hospital and the staff was marking them as escapees. So, I decided to keep a close watch with my colleagues to find out how these patients were ‘escaping’,” said Gaikwad.

Gaikwad said his colleague Ritesh Gaikwad waited outside Sassoon Hospital late on July 22 posing as an autorickshaw driver when some hospital staff approached him to hire his vehicle to ferry a patient. “They brought the destitute man, who had been admitted by us a few days ago, and put him in the rickshaw. They asked me to follow their vehicle. After we reached the area behind Yerwada Mental Hospital they asked me to stop, picked up the patient and dropped him under a tree,” said Ritesh.

Dadasaheb Gaikwad said, “After we exposed the incident, we again admitted the destitute patient to ward number 12 of Sassoon Hospital and he is currently receiving treatment.”