How hospital fluffed up the numbers for MCI inspection

An alleged shortage of staff forced authorities of Dr D Y Patil Hospital and Research Centre in Nerul, Navi Mumbai to transfer some staff from their non-medical colleges to fulfill the requirements set by the Medical Council of India (MCI) for a two-day inspection.

The MCI officials conducted an inspection on Monday and Tuesday of both the Dr D Y Patil Hospital and the Dr DY Patil Medical College. When our reporter visited the hospital and college, we found that lab assistants from the engineering college and doctors from other hospitals had been posted on duty just to fulfill the MCI criteria.

Hospital sources talked to MiD DAY about a shortage of paramedical staff at the college as well as a shortage of doctors at the hospital in various departments. During an inspection any given hospital or medical college is required to have a fixed minimum number of doctors, teaching staff and paramedical staff as per MCI guidelines. If any medical college or hospital fails to meet the basic criteria, they stand the chance of being derecognised by the MCI.

While taking rounds of the medical college, MiD DAY found three lab assistants from Ramrao Adik Institute of Technology (RAIT) acting as the lab assistants at different labs in the medical college. One of the lab assistants said on condition of anonymity, "I work as a lab assistant in the electronics department of the engineering college and I have been asked to sit in the forensics lab of the medical college.

Due to the inspection, I am acting as a paramedical staff of the medical college. I was told that nobody would ask me any questions during the inspection; hence there is no need to be worried. There are two other lab assistants from the engineering college who have been posted in other medical departments."

He also confirmed that doctors from other hospitals have also been presented as staff of the Dr D Y Patil Hospital during the inspection. He however claimed that he had no knowledge of how many such doctors have been temporarily hired or how much they were being paid. Asked what had happened during the inspection, he said, "I was seated inside the lab when the officials arrived. They shot an entire video of the lab with lab assistants. They did not ask us any questions about the lab."u00a0

Sources confirmed that a meeting was held on Saturday, March 9, among heads of all colleges on the Dr D Y Patil campus. It was in this meeting that the decision of transferring staff from other colleges to the medical college was made. The college had prior information that the inspection would be conducted on Monday.

When contacted, Dr Shyam More, deputy medical superintendent, Dr D Y Patil Hospital said, "The allegations are baseless and no such transfer was done for the inspection. It is true that the labs have been outsourced to Krishna Diagnostics for the past four months.

I deny that lab assistants from other colleges were posted in the medical college labs. And no doctors were hired to represent the hospital during the inspection."u00a0Both the dean of the medical college and the medical superintendent of the hospital were not available for comment, despite several attempts to get in touch with them.