Dr Sunil Waghmare

multi-vitamins

Borivali-basedhad promised that the boy would start speaking fluently within days of being discharged from his clinic.The Maharashtra Medical Council (MMC) has suspended the licence of a Borivali-based diploma holder in radiology for promising to treat a mentally disabled boy by using stem cell therapy and cheating the family of Rs 3 lakh.Dr Sunil Waghmare, who did nothing more than prescribe multivitamin tablets to the boy, has been barred from practising medicine for five years.Strict Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) guidelines govern stem cell therapy, a highly specialised 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.Gopal Donkhede, a resident of Aurangabad, approached Dr Waghmare in 2010 for his then 17-year-old son who suffered from such serious mental under-develpoment that he could not even utter a word. Dr Waghmare, who posed as a stem cell therapy specialist, promised Donkhede that his son would speak fluently just days after he leaves his clinic.For the duration the boy was admitted at Dr Waghmare’s clinic, he was confined to a room which the doctor said was the ‘stem cell therapy room’. The family was not allowed access to the patient even for an hour and no records of stem cell therapy administered were provided. All Donkhede was told was that the boy will start speaking “within days”.However, when the boy did not show any improvement close to a week after his discharge, Donkhede approached Dr Waghmare, who asked him to be patient and prescribed some. A few weeks later, Donkhede was back at Dr Waghmare with the boy, whose condition had remained the same. Donkhede told Maharashtra Medical Council investigators that Dr Waghmare turned abusive when he sought refund of Rs 3 lakh he had spent on his son’s treatment.Donkhede filed a complaint against Dr Waghmare with the MMC in early 2011. In 2016, the MMC, then led by Dr Kishore Taori, found Dr Waghmare guilty of gross negligence and suspended his license for five years. Dr Waghmare, however, challenged the MMC order at the high court. The court did not deem it fit to intervene in the case and directed the MMC to hear Dr Waghmare one last time and pronounce its judgment.At the second hearing before MMC last month, Dr 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 Dr 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.Donkhede, who doggedly followed the case, said he wanted justice for his son. “He is my only child. I also wanted to make sure that this becomes a cautionary tale for others who have special kids. I hope this case will serve as a warning to those doctors who cheat poor, desperate patients and their families,” he said.Taking to Mumbai Mirror on Monday, Dr 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.When asked if he has had any formal training in stem cell therapy, Dr Waghmare said: “I have attended several stem cell therapy conferences. Many doctors in the city use stem cell therapy. Do you think they all are following the ICMR guidelines?”He also said he was yet to receive a copy of the MMC order. “I will look at my legal options once I have a copy of the order,” he said.