Puja Khedkar has 7% physical disability, minimum 40% needed to avail benefits: YCM hospital dean

Benchmark

“The diagnosis in her case is an old ACL tear with left knee instability. She has 7 per cent permanent disability in relation to her left lower limb as per the guidelines,” the YCM hospital’s disability certificate (a copy of which is with The Indian Express) stated. The diagnosis was given by Dr Milind Lokhande as part of the medical board team’s assessment.

Since YCM Hospital issued the disability certificate, the online application to Aundh’s District Hospital was cancelled.

Dr Nagnath Yempalle, civil surgeon at Pune’s District Hospital told The Indian Express that once the certification is generated by a hospital, the application ‘auto cancelled’ at their facility.

In Pune, 9 centres including Sassoon General Hospital, District Hospital, YCM Hospital, Kamala Nehru Hospital and others, are assigned to carry out assessments to certify a person’s condition, after which disability certificates are generated.

The district civil surgeon in Ahmednagar told the press on Sunday, that the then medical boards of the hospital had issued Khedkar a visual disability certificate in 2018 and a mental disability certificate in 2021, respectively. Also, the then board had issued her a combined certificate for medical disabilities in 2021.

In 2022, however, Khedkar had sought disability certificates from YCM and District Hospital.

Areas of disability

There are 5 major areas where disability certificates are issued – locomotor, visual, hearing, mental (dyslexia and others) and blood disorders (like haemophilia , thalassaemia. There are another 21 subsets of disabilities under the five categories and accordingly the applications are processed. Once the application is submitted online the candidate then selects his/her preference of hospital where tests are carried out and accordingly certificates of disability are issued.

Since our system showed that Khedkar has already been issued 7 per cent locomotor disability by YCM hospital, the application got auto cancelled at District hospital (Aundh)Pune,” Dr Yempalle added.