Policy: fake medical certificates

Surprisingly, the news about doctors with fake degrees has become such a common phenomenon that it goes out of sight without as much as creating a ripple. Lesser is the news about certified and practising doctors having no qualms in releasing fake medical certificates for people who require the same either for applying for medical leaves, or for getting monetary reimbursements. Unfortunately, the fact is that unlike other certified professions (CA, as a pristine example), where one can take to task the person who provides a false certificate, there's no mass propaganda by the government to suspend/debar doctors who have no qualms in giving fake medical certificates.

One saw the issue of fake certifications coming up on a massive scale recently in the airline industry, where quite a few pilots on active duty were either arrested or thrown out of their jobs for providing fraudulent marksheets. Some of the middlemen who mobilised the certificates for the pilots were also arrested. Then why does not the government start arresting doctors who give fake certificates?

There are exceptions. In August 2011, the Karnataka high court noticed a big racket behind false accident claims and even prosecuted a doctor for the same. Last year, administrators of Jamia Millia Islamia University debarred around 200 students who provided fake medical certificates (to compensate for their poor attendance) in order to become eligible for the examination – and along with this, police complaints were also filed against 12 doctors accused of issuing those certificates. The surreptitious act of providing fake medical certificates are rampant with job seekers too as most of the companies today ask for a medical fitness certificate at the time of joining.

The widespread use of fake medical certificates is also well extended to government employees, bureaucrats and VIPs. Think about a well known person who's going to get arrested, and nine times out of ten, there will be a medical certificate ready to certify that the person needs immediate hospitalisation. From Ramalingam Raju to Yeddyurappa, from Kalmadi to Amar Singh, many have gotten hospitalised or claimed a medical condition just before getting arrested – and based on certificates issued by doctors who are supposed to espouse the Hippocratic oath.

If the former DGP of Bihar V D Ram had withdrawn medical reimbursement of Rs.50,000 allegedly producing a fake certificate in 2009, then the same is done quite regularly by innumerable employees  in private corporations too. In 2001, in an infamous case in the Allahabad court, Deepti – a victim of dowry torture – was declared mentally unfit by doctors and was even sent to a mental asylum only to be later released, when it was proved otherwise. How can one forget Chandigarh-based physician Dr J S Bedi who issued a fake medical certificate to Vikas Gill (involved in the Jessica Lal murder case) stating Gill was unwell and needed rest.

Clearly, there's something gravely amiss in the Indian doctors' community – and this, the government has to immediately come down upon.