Imbroglio at GMCT over whistle-blower doctor row gets murkier

The imbroglio at the Government Medical College Hospital,Thiruvananthapuram, (GMCT) involving whistle-blower doctor and Head of Urology department Haris Chirackal seems to be getting murkier.

A press conference called by Principal of GMCT P.K. Jabbar and Superintendent Sunilkumar on Friday morning purportedly to explain the ongoing situation at the medical college was intended to put Dr. Chirackal under a cloud. However, by evening the picture changed, leaving MCH authorities with egg on their face.

In fact, the entire exercise only added fuel to the theory that Dr. Chirackal was being persecuted by the government and the “system.”

Dr. Jabbar and Dr. Sunilkumar explained that following the mention about an equipment gone “missing” from the Urology department, in the report of the expert committee which inquired into the allegations about systemic deficiencies raised by Dr. Chirackal, the MCH authorities conducted two inspections at the department and the room of Dr. Chirackal on August 5 and 7 to trace the equipment.

Dr. Chirackal has been on leave since August 4, following a notice issued by the government on him and the controversy over the “missing” equipment (a Morcellator, which he maintained was in his room and was never missing).

The MCH authorities explained to the media that on the first examination of the HoD’s room on Tuesday, they had found a small box with a Morcellator. However, on a “detailed” examination of the room on Thursday, they said a bigger carton, which seemed to have come through a courier service, containing another instrument, a Nephroscope, was found.

But there were some bills inside the said box, which seemed “unusual”, for one of the bills seemed to have been issued on August 2 by some company in Ernakulam for the purchase of a Morcellator, they said.

The implication was clear, that the Morcellator seemed to be a recent acquisition, purchased right after the matter of the “missing” equipment was unearthed in the expert committee report.

The authorities added another angle to the story when they said that CCTV footage had shown someone going into the locked room of the HoD and that a more detailed investigation was in order to ascertain the truth of the matter.

Dr. Chirackal, meanwhile, in a message posted on Thursday on a social media group of the Kerala Government Medical College Teachers’ Association, protested that after inspecting his room on Tuesday, an entire army of MCH officials had again gone into his room on Thursday and that they locked it with a new lock. He expressed fear that he might be “trapped” by the authorities by foisting false allegations of malpractice or by some tampering with in his room.

Later in the day, Dr. Chirackal, in another message on the KGMCTA group, explained that the department had sent a couple of old Nephroscopes to a firm in Ernakulam for repairs and that as the repairs were to be too expensive, he had asked the firm to return them. He said in the post that the couriered box with nephroscope/scopes found in his room was probably the same.

By evening, the firm endorsed the doctor and said it was by mistake that the carton containing the old Nephroscope had been labelled as Morcellator. The so-called “unusual“ bills were not purchase bills but delivery chalans for the Nephroscopes.

Senior faculty members at the MCH said they were disgusted by the manner in which the MCH episode was evolving.

“It is clear that that press conference was intended to turn the needle of suspicion towards Dr. Chirackal. The last one month should have been used by the MCH authorities to correct the systemic issues pointed out by Dr. Chirackal, instead of going after the missing equipment,” a doctor said.

KGMCTA general secretary Rosenara Beegum said the organisation would call an emergency central committee meeting to discuss the issue and that Dr. Chirackal had its full backing.