By IANS
Panchkula (Haryana) : Police in Haryana’s Panchkula town are probing the role of a “fake doctor” who ran a flourishing private hospital here following allegations that several elderly people had lost their eyesight after being operated by him.
Police investigations have revealed that over 80 elderly people were taken to the Shubham Hospital and Diagnostic Centre here in Sector 20 for eye camps held by the doctors in November 2006.
Over two-dozen of the patients have told the police that after their cataract operations they lost sight in one eye completely or were left with reduced vision. Most of the victims are villagers from the Morni area of Panchkula district, 35 km from here.
Hospital owner Sandeep Sharma is absconding after the hospital was raided by health authorities and police last month. District health officials claim Sharma, who projected himself as a qualified MBBS doctor, did not have a proper degree.
But Sharma’s hospital employed several qualified doctors and ran successfully. A district civil surgeon even joined the same hospital after retiring from the government.
“We were taken by the hospital doctors in a bus in November 2006 to Panchkula for cataract operations that were done at night. After some time, I lost my eyesight in one eye,” retired government servant Jagdish Kaushik said.
“We have come to know that of the over 80 people who went for the camp, nearly 25 were operated upon by Sharma himself and most of them lost their eyesight,” deputy superintendent of police Abhey Rao said.