Trehan challenges his ouster

New Delhi, May 19 (UNI) Eminent cardiologist Naresh Trehan today challenged his removal as Executive Director of the Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre (EHIRC) by the Fortis Healthcare, saying the management had no right to do so.

Dr Trehan said the present management of the hospital (which had been acquired by Ranbaxy-backed Fortis) had no authority to terminate him. ''I am still a ten percent stakeholder in the company. They have no legal ground to sack me. I am a doctor first.

It is my moral duty to attend to my patients,'' he told reporters.

Yesterday, Fortis Healthcare had, in a press statement announced that Dr Trehan has relinquished office as executive director of EHIRC to pursue his Medicity project in Gurgaon.

''Dr Trehan now leaves EHIRC to concentrate on his Medicity venture. He continues to be a 10 per cent shareholder in EHIRC," the Fortis said.

Mr Shivinder Mohan Singh, managing director, Escorts and Fortis Healthcare, said,''Over the past 18 months, Dr Trehan has been increasingly focussed on the Rs 1000 crore Medicity project at Gurgaon. It was a clear case of conflict of interest as he continued to concentrate more on his personal project.'' He said, ''While Dr Trehan's management role has been scrapped, he continues to be a stakehoder and will be allowed to attend to patients registered under him.'' Agitated relatives of patients protested the management's decision and tried to vandalise hospital's property. ''After great difficulty, I had managed to get an appointment from Dr Trehan. I sold my property to meet the costs of treatment of my son. How can they do this to us,'' moaned an anguished father.

Initially, the security personnel at the hospital had tried to prevent Dr Trehan from entering the premises. However, he managed to go inside after the relatives of the patients protested.

Dr Trehan, who had single-handedly brought Escorts' name on the world's medical tourism map, was indignant about the treatment meted out to him. ''I am duty-bound to attend to my patients. The relatives of those patients on whom serious surgeries had to be done are worried,''he said.

Terming Dr Trehan's removal as 'unceremonious' , Dr Ramesh Datta, president of the Delhi Medical Association, said,''Fortis action was highly condemnable. If this was the way a doctor of Dr Trehan's stature was treated, then what can an ordinary doctor expect. This is what happens when corporates decide, without taking into account patients' welfare.'' UNI