Karnataka: Pre-wedding shoot held in non-functional operation theatre at govt hospital, say Health officials

Chitradurga (Karnataka): The operation theatre of a government-run hospital in Chitradurga district where a pre-wedding photo shoot was held by a contractual doctor, has been non-functional since September last year, health officials said on Saturday.

Also, the shoot was done without the knowledge of the Assistant Medical Officer of the facility in the Bharamasagar area, they said.

The doctor, Abhishek, was dismissed from service on Friday after a video of the photo shoot went viral on social media, sparking a controversy. It was held on February 7, they added.

"The woman who is seen assisting the doctor in the video is his fiancee, who is also a doctor by profession but does not work in the same government medical facility. She works elsewhere. The doctor, who was dismissed from service for his act, is a MBBS graduate and was recently hired on a contractual basis for a year," a senior district health officer told PTI.

"He reported for duty on January 12 and was posted at the medical health centre in Bharamasagar area because the facility had lot of OT (Opeartion Theatre) patients and there were vacancies," the official added.

"The dismissed doctor had also applied for leave for his wedding but before going for leave did this pre-wedding photo shoot in the OT of the hospital which is under repair and has not been used since September last year. Not even a single medical procedure has been performed in that OT since then. But this doctor without the knowledge of the Assistant Medical Officer (AMO), arranged a photo shoot inside the unused OT and got his fiancee and others inside the facility without the knowledge of the medical officer," he said.

As per the report submitted by the AMO, the photo shoot was done without his permission, without bringing it to his notice.

"So, when the matter came to notice, we immediately dismissed him from service," he added.

Taking to social media platform 'X', Karnataka Health Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao had on Friday said the doctor who conducted a pre-wedding shoot in the operation theatre of Bharamasagar government Hospital in Chitradurga has been dismissed from service.

In the video, the doctor could be seen performing a 'surgery' on a patient, while his partner is assisting him. At the end of the video, the man who acted as a patient on whom the surgery was being performed was seen sitting up 'post-operation'. The video also showed people with cameras and lights present in the operation theatre for the pre-wedding shoot. The couple was dressed in scrubs and equipped with proper medical equipment for the shoot.