SOUTH ASIA’S THRIVING NEEM HAKIM’S OR FAKE DOCTORS

Rahmat was a daily wage laborer working and living in a small ,dusty and nondescript town of Punjab province in Pakistan. He was part of the millions of poor Pakistanis living way below the poverty line who did not figure in any benefit schemes of the government

One evening, Rahmat complained of acute pain in his abdomen and had to be rushed to a hospital. Like most small towns in his country, his also did not have a functional government medical facility and hence had to be taken to a private nursing home run by “Dr Baig” the only doctor available within miles

That evening, for a common pain triggered due to indigestion, Rahmat was “operated” upon as an emergency case in Dr Baig's dingy make shift operation theatre. However, that was just the beginning of Rahmat’s ordeal as his condition worsened after the operation but was thrown out of the hospital since his family could not afford the admission bills to be paid in advance.

Before day break, after an agonizing night writhing in pain in front of his distraught family and friends consisting of a young wife, three minor children and a few concerned neighbors, Rahmat died a painful death. Someone informed the police and also a local NGO for good measure. The family decided to file a police complaint on advice of the local NGO and a postmortem was conducted. What it revealed was shocking! One of Rahmat’s kidneys had been removed in the so called “operation” by Dr Baig and excessive internal bleeding post the botched up operation led to failure of critical organs eventually leading to his death.

Police investigations later revealed that Dr Baig had never in his life seen the inside of a medical school leave alone having studied in one. He was a conman, part of a huge racket involved in organised organ trafficking. While Baig will now be some time behind bars, but he was just one culprit whom the authorities could catch. There are scores of such fake doctors and surgeons with fake degrees who attract the poor illiterate masses by taking advantage of lack of public health care service

Rahmat could have been Muthuswamy in India, Ghimire in Nepal or Shakib in Bangladesh. The scenario is same in most of the South Asian countries. A large number of con men are freely roaming around in these countries in the garb of doctors involved in trafficking of human organs and raking in millions of dollars.

It’s high time that governments in these countries came up with stricter regulations to check this menace. There should be exemplary punishments meted out to the perpetrators of such heinous crimes. More importantly, the absence of primary health centers and other government sponsored medical care in the hinterland needs to become a priority ahead of every other priority within the healthcare domain.

A centralized agency run by the government needs to ensure licensing of all medical practitioners irrespective of their size of operations. One of the main pre requisites for grant of licenses should be a valid third party background verification for the doctor’s education and experience credentials.

Globally every year, background screening companies discover thousands of fake health professionals playing with human lives every day till they get caught. However, the trial laws for such culprits are quite ambiguous and defendant friendly which helps these perpetrators to get back into circulation in no time. There is an urgent need to weed out and send people like "Dr Baig" behind bars for life to ensure they do not snuff out innocent and unsuspecting Rahmat’s across the globe