Dr Sunil Waghmare, a Radiologist of Mumbai, who was allegedly practicing Stem Cell Therapy, is suspended for five years, by the Maharashtra Medical Council.
From news items – Aug 7, 2018
Stem Cell Therapy – Status in India
I have been trying to find out the status of Stem Cell Therapy in India.
There are a few practitioners in India who promise to cure many incurable diseases through Stem Cell Therapy.
But most experts say that Stem Cell Therapy is still at an experimental stage, not only in India, but all over the world. And the treatment could be risky.
Doctor’s License suspended for 5 years for practicing Stem Cell Therapy.
The Maharashtra Medical Council (MMC) has suspended the licence of Dr Sunil Waghmare, a Borivali-based radiologist, for 5 years, for promising to treat a mentally disabled boy by using stem cell therapy and thereby cheating the family of Rs 3 lakhs.
Brief Facts of the Case
In 2010 Gopal Donkhede, a resident of Aurangabad, approached Dr Sunil Waghmare for the treatment of his then 17-year-old son who was suffering from such serious mental under-development that he could not even speak a word.
Dr Sunil Waghmare, who posed as a stem cell therapy specialist, promised Gopal Donkhede that his son would speak fluently just days after he leaves his clinic.
The boy was admitted in Dr. Sunil Waghmare’s clinic where he was confined to a room which the doctor said was the ‘stem cell therapy room’.
The boy’s family was not allowed access to the patient even for an hour and no records of stem cell therapy administered were provided. All Gopal Donkhede was told was that the boy will start speaking “within days”.
However, when the boy did not show any improvement about a week after his discharge, Gopa Donkhede approached Dr Sunil Waghmare, who asked him to be patient and prescribed some multi-vitamins.
A few weeks later, Gopal Donkhede was back at Dr Sunil Waghmare with the boy, whose condition had remained the same. Dr Sunil Waghmare allegedly turned abusive when Gopal Donkhede sought refund of Rs 3 lakh he had spent on his son’s treatment.
Finally, Gopal Donkhede filed a complaint against Dr Sunil Waghmare with the MMC in early 2011.
MMC’s Findings
In 2016, the MMC, then headed by Dr Kishore Taori, found Dr Sunil Waghmare guilty of gross negligence and suspended his license for five years. Dr Sunil Waghmare, challenged the MMC order in the High Court. The High Court did not deem it fit to intervene in the case but directed the MMC to hear Dr Sunil Waghmare one last time and then pronounce its judgment.
At the second hearing before MMC last month, Dr Sunil Waghmare claimed that he had carried out the stem cell therapy with the assistance of a doctor who was a specialist. However, during the course of the hearing before the MMC, Dr Sunil Waghmare could not even provide the name of this doctor, leaving the MMC with no option but to reiterate its earlier decision to suspend his license for five years.
Dr Shivkumar Utture, president, MMC, on Monday told Mumbai Mirror that Dr Waghmare could not produce a single document to prove he had carried out any research in stem cells therapy. “There are strict ICMR guidelines in what sort of cases stem cell therapy can be allowed. The doctors who can administer stem cell therapy must also secure a clearance from ICMR,” he said.
Dr Sunil Waghmare, who did nothing more than prescribe multivitamin tablets to the boy, has been barred from practicing medicine for five years.
ICMR Guidelines
Strict Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) guidelines govern stem cell therapy, a highly specialized arm of medicine, in India. Bone marrow transplants and therapies in which stem cells harvested from umbilical cord blood are used are the most popular.
Remarks
Talking to Mumbai Mirror on Monday, Dr Sunil Waghmare said he treated the boy on humanitarian ground. “I have admitted to the MMC that I made a mistake. I didn’t follow the ICMR guidelines, but I treated the boy in good faith. The boy’s father approached me after other lines of treatment had failed,” he said, and added that he has used stem cell therapy on several diabetic patients and they are all now insulin free.
