Kidney racket: Hiranandani appoints E&Y for audit

In the wake of the kidney racket at Mumbai's Dr L H Hiranandani Hospital, the board of trustees of the Powai hospital on Thursday appointed consultancy firm E&Y to conduct a ''stringent audit'' of transplant cases conducted at the hospital.

Meanwhile, three more doctors of the hospital are under the police scanner in connection with the case. Two of them, Dr Surveen Shetty and Dr Veena Shewalikar, moved anticipatory bail applications before the Dindoshi metropolitan court. Their applications will be heard on Friday.

''Dr L H Hiranandani Hospital is extremely saddened by the irregularities and is immediately taking corrective action. The hospital had earlier appointed a five-member committee to examine documents of the past six months relating to the transplant cases. The discrepancies thereof were reported to the police,'' the hospital said in a statement on Thursday night.

It added, ''Dr L H Hiranandani Hospital is cooperating with the law, and in order to take the right recourse, the hospital has appointed external experts to carry out the investigation and unearth irregularities and the people behind it. As an interim measure, the hospital has appointed Dr Arun Shetty as the Medical Director to take charge of the hospital till Dr Sujit Chatterjee resumes.''

The Mumbai police had arrested Dr Chatterjee, the hospital's chief executive officer, Medical Director Dr Anurag Naik and doctors Mukesh Shetye, Mukesh Shah and Prakash Shetty in connection with the kidney racket, taking the total number of arrests to 14.

''After the kidney racket was exposed, the state health department had set up a committee to question some doctors. Three of these doctors did not appear before the committee and hence their report was not submitted by the committee to the police,'' a senior police official said. (See: 5 more Hiranandani docs held in organ sale racket).