Selling fake medical certificates in exchange for money has turned into a profitable business for a racket of counterfeiters at the DMCH.
This racket has been reportedly counterfeiting the signatures of responsible doctors and the stamp pads of the DMCH to issue the fake MCs for each of which they charge Tk10,000-Tk50,000.
An MC is a statement from a physician that attests to the result of a medical examination of a patient that can later serve as a document to be used for various purposes, including police investigations.
The issue had come to the forefront in recent times after a number of courts and police stations sent back more than 200 MCs for rechecking. Apparently, those MCs had something wrong in them that raised suspicion about their genuineness. Many of these fake certificates were issued from January to November.
In July, the Dhaka Tribune ran a story about the fact that the DMCH did not have any designated form for issuing medical certificates. The MC forms ran out many years ago and had never been reprinted. The MCs had been issued on white papers ever since.
Seeking anonymity, several high officials of DMCH have confirmed the issue and said 95% of those sent back MCs were found to be fake.
They said some of the patients, after taking first aid from the hospital’s emergency wing, paid the counterfeiters certain amounts for fake MCs and produced those before the courts. The hospital authorities had nothing to do with it and knew nothing about those documents.
Admitting that the ill practice had been on the rise in recent times, DMCH Deputy Director Musfiqur Rahman said: “Nobody can directly issue a medical certificate to a patient without the director’s permission. Every patient must apply for an MC either through police or a court. The patient also needs to produce the original ticket [issued at the time of admission] and the release letter with the application.
“Then police will file a prayer to the hospital for an MC. Upon the police prayer, the assistant registrar and the record keeper of the hospital will verify the information of the patient and then send the certificate to the police station or the court concerned,” Musfiqur said.
He added that the DMCH authority had issued a total of 669 MCs in legal ways from January to November.
However, there are allegations that the patients often go to the counterfeiters because the legal procedure for getting an MC from the hospital was too lengthy. Sometimes, the officials concerned “deliberately” harass the patients for issuing certificates.
The Dhaka Tribune has learnt that although there is a strict order from the hospital director to not take more than 72 hours for issuing an MC, patients have said the process takes at least 15 days. Sometimes, the hospital takes four months to issue an MC.
DMCH Record Keeper Abdul Hannan told the Dhaka Tribune that most patients did not know that they must produce the ticket and release orders with applications.
DMCH Director Brigadier General Mustafizur Rahman is confident that no doctor or employee of the hospital is involved with issuing fake MCs.
“We are really in trouble with this. I urge people to not get any medical certificate by paying anyone. Medical certificates are given for free. The only thing needed is proper submission of application,” Mustafizur said.