Mumbai, Oct. 9: Doctors at Mumbai's government-run J.J. Hospital have complained to the state human rights panel against some of them being made to taste Indrani Mukerjea's food to ensure it wasn't poisoned.
The doctors argued the practice was humiliating and amounted to putting the life of a "petty criminal" like Indrani, the prime accused in the murder of daughter Sheena Bora, above theirs. Indrani was hospitalised for four days last week after she fell unconscious in jail.
"We were asked to do so on the direct instructions of hospital dean T.P. Lahane," said a medical officer who was made to taste the food.
Other Mumbai doctors said even 1993 blasts accused and convicts charged with terror did not get the kind of treatment that the hospital gave Indrani at the cost of its medical officers.
"Indrani became a VIP in the hospital during her stay. She would eat the food 10 minutes after a medical officer had tasted it. So if someone tried to kill her by poisoning the food, it is the medical officer who would die," said another J.J. Hospital doctor.
The aggrieved doctors approached the Association of Medical Consultants, a Mumbai-based body of such professionals, which filed the complaint with the Maharashtra Human Rights Commission against Lahane and the hospital administration.
"Alleged and convicted criminals far more dangerous than Indrani have stayed in J.J. Hospital but there were no special checks on their food for poisoning," said a top city doctor who spent many years at J.J. Hospital and now works as a consultant for private hospitals.
The doctor reeled off some instances on his watch. "Abu Salem's aide Riyaz Siddiqui and Dawood Ibrahim aide Mohammad Dossa, both convicts in the 1993 blasts, had been admitted under me at different times in various hospitals of the city during the course of their trials.
"But nobody, doctor or anyone else, ever checked their food to ensure it was not poisoned. Their security was more sensitive as their crimes were against the state - they had killed hundreds. Indrani is a petty criminal compared to them," the doctor said.
While doctors, police and jail authorities initially believed that Indrani might have attempted suicide by overdosing on drugs in jail, suspicion about foul play and a murder bid have not been ruled out either.
Lahane, the hospital dean, cited the perceived threat to justify the food-tasting order to the doctors. "There was greater focus on her security and the medical officers were asked to taste her food as part of the hospital's attempt to protect her," Lahane said.
This is not the first such order at the hospital, though. "Even when I joined JJ as a young medical officer in 1977, the practice had been continuing. But at that time, the doctors would taste the food to maintain quality checks, especially on food meant for tuberculosis patients, prisoners and (for those in) geriatric wards," said Jalil Parkar, now a consultant pulmonologist at Lilavati Hospital.
Jayesh Shah, the president of the Indian Medical Association's Maharashtra unit, recalled that the practice of tasting food to check for poison began over two decades ago for so-called "VIP prisoners" when several stockbrokers and businessmen were arrested and charged with financial fraud or stock scams.
J.J. Hospital has a central kitchen. Before the food trolleys leave the kitchen for the wards, the meals have to be tasted by medical officers of some special wards. The food is served to patients only after they clear as hygienic and wholesome.
"But there is no strict control or adherence to this procedure on a day-to-day basis. Only when VIPs are in a ward there is greater emphasis on norms," said a doctor at the hospital.
