THE new sunday express MAGAZINE Voices Pushpesh Pant Devdutt Pattanaik Ravi Shankar Preeti Shenoy Dinesh Singh Swami Sukhabodhananda Buffet People Wellness Books Food Art & Culture Entertainment may 4 2025 SUNDAY PAGES 12 Fatal Medicine India’s fake doctor crisis is playing havoc with healthcare, especially in rural areas and with the poor. With no timely action and cases stuck in courts for years, there is no end in sight nor justice delivered W By R Sneha hen 63-year-old Raisa Beg clutched her chest in pain on a cold January morning, her son, Nabi Qureshi, barely paused to put on his shoes. Minutes later, they were racing toward the hospital, desperate for help. “We were told she would need both an angiography and an angioplasty,” Qureshi recalls, his voice breaking. A junior doctor at the hospital recommended a “specialist from London” to perform the procedure. They told Qureshi that two of his mother’s arteries were blocked and insisted she needed immediate angioplasty When he asked for . the angiography reports, the hospital stonewalled him for two days, citing “administrative delays”. “On January 15, my mother underwent angioplasty and just 30 minutes after the procedure, she passed away,” Qureshi says. Raisa Beg was one of the seven patients who died after Narendra Vikramaditya Yadav, a man posing as a British-trained cardiologist operated on her at Mission Hospital in Damoh, Madhya Pradesh. Yadav is alleged to have impersonated Dr N John Camm, a reputed cardiologist from St. George’s University London, and , performed no less that 15 surgeries. On April 7, he was arrested by MP Police in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh. His arrest revealed a scandal that extends well beyond a single instance of medical malpractice. Media reports exposed a troubling two-decade tale of deceit. Armed with forged certificates and a fabricated CV he convinced Mission , Hospital to grant him surgical privileges. “He walked into the operating theatre like he owned it,” a nurse later told investigators, speaking anonymously “No one checked his . credentials.” Yadav had previously worked at two private clinics in Delhi and Bhopal, using stolen identities to pose as a heart specialist. His arrest followed a tip from a whistleblower—a hospital clerk who grew suspicious after Yadav failed to answer basic medical questions during a staff meeting. Mission Hospital faced scrutiny for its lax oversight. Records showed no verification of Yadav’s 75 per cent of fake doctors operate in Telangana alone, many of whom can be found in urban centres like Hyderabad, where top government and private hospitals exist A 2016 WHO report found that nearly one-third (31 per cent) of those claiming to be allopathic doctors in India in 2001 were educated only up to the secondary school level, and 57 per cent lacked any medical qualification In the 1950s, the private sector accounted for just 8 per cent of the healthcare market. Today, it controls around 70 per cent. Nearly two-thirds of all doctors now work in the private sector More than 70 per cent of healthcare providers in rural India have no formal medical training credentials, and the hospital’s director declined to comment. Families of the victims, including Qureshi, have filed lawsuits, demanding accountability . “How could they let a fraud operate on my mother?” a shocked Qureshi asks. In February 2018, another startling case emerged after 33 people in a village in Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao district tested positive for HIV The . culprit, Rajesh Yadav, a so-called doctor, would ride from house to house on his bicycle, offering a “magic treatment” for just `10. His “treatment”—an injection and three packets of some medicinal powder— promised to cure various ailments. Yadav reused the same syringe for all patients, spreading HIV among all thirty three. These bizarre incidents are not just limited to fake doctors. On April 16, a qualified doctor at a government hospital in Jalaun, Uttar Pradesh— Suresh Chandra—was caught on video asking a five-yearold boy to smoke a cigarette as treatment for a cold. Widely shared on social media, the video sparked public outrage. Health authorities transferred the doctor, and ordered an enquiry. But the scale of the problem of fake medical practitioners is staggering. In November 2023, the Delhi Police arrested two doctors and two fake doctors from a clinic located in Greater Kailash. Neeraj Agarwal, who operated the Agarwal Medical Centre, was a physician, but performed surgeries with the help of counterfeit credentials, along with Jaspreet Singh, Pooja Agarwal (Neeraj Agarwal’s wife who posed as a doctor), and former laboratory technician Mahender Singh (who also posed as a doctor). The issue came to light when a patient underwent gallbladder stone removal and experienced severe post-operative distress leading to his death. At a debate titled ‘Public Health? Immediate Need for Action Against Quackery’ conducted by the Indian Medical Association (IMA)-Telangana, in March this year, it was highlighted that 75 per cent of fake doctors operate in Telangana alone, many of whom practice in urban centres like Hyderabad. Last year it was found that several unqualified individuals registered as doctors under the Rajasthan Medical Council (RMC) using forged documents and certificates of doctors from other states. A 2016 WHO report found that nearly one-third (31 per cent) of those claiming to be allopathic doctors in India in 2001 were educated only up to the secondary school level, and 57 per cent lacked any medical qualification. Though then Union Health Minister JP Nadda dismissed the report as “erroneous” in January 2018 during a Lok Sabha session, a subsequent FAQ on the National Medical Commission Bill, issued by the Press Information Bureau on August 6, 2018, confirmed that 57.3 per cent of personnel practicing allopathic medicine in India have no medical training. up in smoke On April 16, a ‘qualified’ doctor at a government hospital in Jalaun, Uttar Pradesh, Suresh Chandra, allegedly asked a five-year-old boy to smoke a cigarette as a treatment for a cold. The moment was caught on camera and shared on social media, sparking public outrage. Health authorities transferred the doctor, and ordered an enquiry into the incident The Broader Problem of Fake Doctors Dr T Sundaraman, former head of the Union government’s National Health Systems Resource Centre and now associated with the Jan Swasthya Abhiyan, explains that while many people loosely refer to informal practitioners as “fake doctors,” the distinction is more complex—and critical. “Fake doctors are those who pretend to have qualifications like an MBBS degree but actually do not,” he says. In contrast, informal care providers—many of whom openly acknowledge they lack formal degrees—offer treatments based on practical knowledge rather than official certification. “They say ‘I am , not an MBBS doctor, but I have learned some things and can help you if you want’,” he adds. The difference matters. In many parts of India, where public healthcare systems beyond maternity care and immunisation often fall short, informal providers fill the gap. They have been around for generations, and where robust public health services exist—as in parts of Himachal Pradesh and Kerala—reliance on them significantly drops. India faces a persistent shortage of formally trained medical professionals, particularly in rural and underserved regions. The healthcare system is largely dominated by private providers. In the 1950s, the private sector accounted for just eight per cent of the healthcare market. Today it , controls around 70 per cent. Nearly two-thirds of all doctors now work in hiv peddler In February 2018, 33 people in a village in Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao district tested positive for HIV. The culprit, Rajesh Yadav, a so-called doctor, would ride from house to house on his bicycle, offering a “magic treatment” for just `10. His “treatment”—an injection and three packets—promised to cure various ailments, but he reused the same syringe for all patients, infecting many with the HIV virus the private sector, highlighting a stark imbalance between public and private healthcare services. In response, a large network of informal healthcare providers—often referred to as “quacks”—has emerged. Although there have been no India-wide surveys to estimate how many such unqualified doctors practice in the country , regional surveys reveal that more than Turn to page 2