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New Delhi|HL
Apollo Hospitals has formed an independent investigative committee to tighten its current organ transplant approval system following a kidney racket recently busted at the hospital.
The committee, headed by Mukul Mudgal, former Chief Justice, Punjab and Haryana High Court, will lead this investigation along with forensic expert, N.C. Sood.
Apollo said the committee will study the existing system for authorization in the hospital and give its recommendations to ensure that the current approval mechanisms are strengthened.
The move comes after the Delhi government set up a five-member panel to investigate whether the hospital followed existing approval protocols and to re-examine the documentation and interview process followed by Apollo’s authorisation committee.
Five persons, including the personal secretaries of one of Indraprastha Apollo’s nephrologists, were arrested last week when the police unearthed an illegal organ trade racket at the hospital in Delhi. Three more persons, including two women, were arrested on Tuesday.
Those arrested have been suspected of reselling the kidneys of financially poor people at exorbitant rates.
Apollo alleges that it was duped into extracting the kidneys under the pretense that the donors were relatives of patients awaiting the organ. The hospital said that the suspected gang members produced fake documentation that forged a relationship between the donors and recipients to convince doctors to follow through with the operations.
Apollo’s stock price has dropped around 2% since the police caught the racket, closing at Rs1,349.45 on Tuesday from Rs1,380 a week ago
