Fake doctor nabbed

Golam Kibria who has been practising as a medical consultant at PC Lab Diagnostic and Consultation Complex in Mirpur-10 holds no medical degrees other than the fake certificates he has bought in India.

In reality he has only completed his Higher Secondary School Certificate (HSC).

A Rapid Action Battalion (Rab)-4 raid led by Executive Magistrate Anwar Pasha brought the situation to light after a drive at the diagnostic centre on Sunday.

After interrogation, Kibria confessed holding no medical qualifications. He said he began his career as an employee at a pharmacy in Kushtia in 1991. Since he wanted 'to become a doctor', in 2003 he went to India and bought MBBS and MD (Doctor of Medicine) certificates at a cost of Tk 12,000 from a network of people there who specialise in sale of 'fake' certificates of different colleges and universities.

"Since then I have been practising medicine as a consultant physician at different medicine shops, clinics and diagnostic centres in the city," Golam Kibria said at the Rab-4 office yesterday.

Kibria used to charge Tk 300 as consultation fee from each patient and he would see 25-30 patients each day, Rab sources said.

Magistrate Anwar Pasha fined Kibria Tk 5 lakh for cheating patients. He also fined the owner of the clinic Dr Shamim Tk 1 lakh for hiring a physician without any qualifications and two lab technicians without relevant qualifications.

Dr Shamim was released on payment of the fine while Kibria has been taken into Rab-4 custody, as he could not pay the fine.

Magistrate Anwar Pasha also told The Daily Star that Kibra's case is not a lone one but that there are scores of others without medical qualifications practising as doctors in the city.

“We have intelligence reports that at least 150 such 'fake doctors' are practising medicine in the city's different hospitals, clinics and diagnostic centres,” he said.

There is also a network of brokers active in different hospitals, including Suhrawardi Medical College and Hospital, in the city who direct patients to these fake doctors.

Rab has already conducted several drives against such practises and fined at least five 'fake doctors' so far.

In a drive on December 4, Rab-4 arrested Dr Shakil Ahmed and Dr Atiar Rahman from Mohanagar Medical Service in the city's Mohammadpur who were practising without any qualifications.

Shakil was found to have even not completed his SSC examination while Atiar Rahman never studied medicine. They were fined Tk 2 lakh each.

In another drive in Mohammadpur area on August 26 last year, a homeopathy doctor, MK Pal, was found to be treating patients presenting himself as an MBBS qualified doctor at Techno Diagnostic Centre at 1/11 Humayun Road. In the same drive Mohammad Anwar was found to be illegally practising as a medicine specialist at Medilab Diagnostic Centres at 2/4 Humayun Road.

Both men were fined.