Ahmedabad: A day after the National Medical Commission (NMC), the country’s apex medical body, stayed the three-year debarment of Dr Prashant Vazirani, a city-based cardiologist, the Gujarat Medical Council (GMC) is likely to approach the NMC with details of the probe committee report.
On Monday, GMC officials said that Dr Vazirani was debarred from the register of medical practitioners in Nov last year after his arrest for his alleged role in the deaths of two patients at Khyati Hospital in Ahmedabad. Dr Vazirani performed angioplasty procedures on seven patients, of whom two succumbed to post-procedure complications.
Sources close to the development said that many in GMC believe the stay will set a wrong precedent, especially when Dr Vazirani, who is still behind bars, has been accused of grave medical misconduct.
In its chargesheet filed before a judicial magistrate first class (JMFC), the crime branch had stated, “Though he was not registered on PM-JAY’s HEM portal, visiting cardiologist Dr Prashant Vazirani treated patients under the govt scheme in Khyati Hospital and performed angiographies and angioplasties.” It claimed that the procedures were performed as part of a conspiracy, for which he brought in 19 patients to the hospital from the free health checkup camp at Borisana village on Nov 10, 2024. He received payments for the procedures from the hospital. The chargesheet further stated, “There was no medical requirement or reason to perform procedures on the 19 patients in the absence of their relatives or without obtaining their consent. He conducted angiographies as part of the conspiracy under the instructions from the hospital’s chairman and directors.”
The investigation report further stated that out of 19 patients, seven did not have blockages and yet the cardiologist prepared heart diagrams showing 70% to 90% blockages and uploaded them on the PM-JAY portal.
Vazirani was accused of creating panic among the patients and their relatives by telling them that the blockages would require immediate intervention, failing which they may suffer a heart attack. “By creating panic, he got signatures from seven such patients on consent forms to place stents, and conducted angioplasty on them. By doing so, the accused doctor bypassed fundamental principles and moral values of medical practice and unnecessarily implanted stents, causing the death of two patients,” the investigator mentioned in his probe report.
