8 months after woman cancer patient’s death, cops hunt for quack

The suspect, Ranjith, has reportedly been practising at different private hospitals for more than a decade. The police have also booked Dr Senthil Kumar, Managing Director of the private multi-speciality hospital, for negligence as he failed to check the bona fide of Ranjith’s fake certificate.

On April 29, K Jothi was admitted to the hospital on P S Siva Swamy Road in a critical stage of ovarian cancer and Ranjith was assigned to treat her. Bala Shankari, Jothi’s daughter, said that Ranjith performed a central venous catheter on the neck of her mother, after which she suffered a seizure and was shifted to the intensive care unit. When the family was mulling on shifting Jothi to a government hospital, she started bleeding from the mouth and eventually died on May 18.

Bala Shankari complained that the Mylapore police delayed accepting her complaint raising suspicion on her mother’s death. The community service register (CSR) certificate was issued to her only on August 28. As police did not make much progress in the investigation, she herself probed the background of the doctor and received the medical registration number of Ranjith from the private hospital after much struggle.

When she sent the number to the Medical Council of India for verification, she was shocked to know that Ranjith was not a qualified doctor as the number belonged to another doctor, Ranjith Kumar, an ortho specialist from Adyar. Only after Bala Shankari took the matter up with police did they start investigating the case in a serious manner.

When police inquired, Dr Senthil Kumar reportedly told them that he had met Ranjith twice in other hospitals and accepted his application to join the hospital. As the medical registration number showed that his name was Ranjith Kumar, Senthil Kumar did not inquire further, said the police.

Bala Shankari, who worked as a professor in Delhi, also alleged that she spent more than Rs 3.5 lakh for the treatment in 20 days and the hospital delayed to give her the receipts for a month.

On Wednesday, Mylapore police registered an FIR against Senthil Kumar and Ranjith under sections of 15(3) of Indian Medical Council Act (punishment for offending law of practising), 419 (punishment for personation) and 420 (cheating) of the IPC.

Jothi is survived by her husband Kasi, a retired government staff, Bala Shankar and another daughter.