Thiruvallur district in Tamil Nadu has seen a spate of deaths lately, involving quacks. On Thursday, a physiotherapist was caught for prescribing drugs as part of the crackdown by the TN health department.
Another doctor-couple were also held for carrying out illegal pre-natal sex determination.
The 35-year-old man identified as Nasser, hails from Madharapakkam in Gummidipoondi and had been practicing for almost a month.
“When we questioned him, he said he was hired by a qualified doctor,“ said D Mohanan, joint health director of health, Tiruvallur, according to a report in The Times of India.
A doctor-couple in the same village were using an unregistered scanning machine for conducting ultrasound. They were caught under the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act (PCPNDT) Act and will be called for interrogation on Friday.
With Hemalatha’s death on September 3, about eight children have died of water and vector-borne infections so far, in which, about five of them were treated by quacks.
According to the public health officials, the quack who treated Hemalatha is absconding. But during the investigation, they found another quack, Padmini, a Siddha practitioner practicing allopathy, as reported by The Times of India.
Mohanan, Thiruvallur joint director of health told TOI that when they visited the quack, she was giving intravenous fluids to a patient with body ache. An FIR was registered against her on the night of September 4.
About 16 quacks have been arrested in August.