On May 20, 2011, 33-year-old Vishal Chand, an assistant manager in finance with Timken India, dropped in at Tata Main Hospital’s emergency unit with chest pain. The doctor checked his blood pressure and ECG and concluded Vishal had gastritis. Vishal, who got pain-relieving injections, died of a massive cardiac arrest in less than 24 hours.
Over eight years later, Vishal’s Delhi-based brother Shishir Chand, now 44, is still waging a war against what he claims was medical negligence that killed Vishal.
Shishir, the Delhi coordinator of People for Better Treatment, an NGO helping victims of medical negligence, claims the Jharkhand state government, under pressure from the corporate sector, was deliberately shielding Dr Atul Chhabra, who had checked Vishal that fateful day.
Now that Jamshedpur gears up to vote on December 7, Shishir told The Telegraph that though he was a voter in Delhi, he wanted to tell the steel city’s voters to think before they cast their franchise.
“What happened to me can happen to you,” Shishir said. “So think before you vote.”
He added he had “no doubt that justice in my brother’s case has been delayed and denied due to undue political interference at the behest of an influential corporate house”.
“It escapes me why two top government hospitals of Jharkhand and Delhi (RIMS and AIIMS) denied expert opinion to the investigating agency (CID) on this case, and why the investigating officer of CID turned a blind eye to the angle of accused Dr Chhabra’s fraud admission to the medical college,” Shishir said. “Criminal negligence by a doctor of Tata Main Hospital who got a medical degree by fraud killed my brother,” alleged Shishir. “And he is still unpunished.”
He pointed out that the former DGP D.K Pandey, “who was presiding over the case” had joined the BJP this October after retirement.
Asked why he blamed Dr Chhabra, Shishir said: “He checked Vishal’s BP and did an ECG, Vishal’s blood pressure was high at 150/100, and ECG had telling signs of ischemic changes. Despite glaring symptoms, Dr Chhabra thought this was gastritis. Our father had died of heart attack, but it did not occur to the doctor to ask Vishal his family history.”
Vishal was asked to report to medical OPD after three days, he added. “Only, he was dead much before.”
Shishir added that the FIR against the doctor and the TMH general manager, medical services, in May 2014, but “police kept dragging their feet”. “Then SSP East Singhbhum Amol V. Homkar kept delaying a medical board for expert opinion for almost a year. In February 2015, it took the state DGP (Pandey) to get a medical board formed at RIMS, Ranchi, but it gave a clean chit to the accused. I complained to then DGP. The case was transferred to the CID. But the CID carried out an opaque probe. The accused was not questioned about his admission
to MGM medical college (in Jamshedpur) nor was his medical degree sent for a forensic test. In 2016, CID prepared a list of questions on Vishal’s treatment and sent it to the medical board at RIMS Ranchi. The medical board evaded replying, and put the onus on AIIMS-Delhi,” Shishir alleged. “So in 2017, the CID sent the questions to AIIMS. But even AIIMS said there was no need for a medical board as some questions were theoretical.”
Shishir said the CID in 2018 filed a closure report at the court of chief judicial magistrate in Jamshedpur. “I challenged it with evidence that the doctor’s admission to MGM medical college was a lie.”
In 2019, the court of the CJM, Jamshedpur, accepted Shishir’s protest plea and ordered a criminal trial. “I moved a criminal writ petition at Jharkhand High Court to transfer the probe to the CBI,” said the brother. “I am fighting to make it easier for others.”
