A medical intern who worked for 16 months at Northdale Hospital, Pietermaritzburg, with a fake degree, has failed in a court bid to compel the University of KwaZulu-Natal to let him re-enrol and complete an unfinished module.
He has since been suspended by the hospital and his membership of the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) has also been suspended.
The application by Reshal Dayanand was dismissed with costs by KZN High Court (Pietermaritzburg) judge Vusi Nkosi, reports the Sunday Times.
In February 2017, forensic audit specialist Avris Sahadew received information that Dayanand, who was doing his medical internship at Northdale, had not completed his degree.
It was alleged he fraudulently obtained his degree with the help of corrupt officials operating as a syndicate. Later that year, the media reported on corruption involving a syndicate of officials at the university who were paid for placements of students.
Sahadew had obtained copies of Dayanand’s academic record and his degree, which he apparently obtained at the end of 2015, and found that the documentation was fraudulent.
In his court application, Dayanand had sought to “review”, under the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act (Paja), what he said was a decision by the university not to readmit him and allow him to complete the outstanding course, Integrated Medicine 3, to obtain his bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery degree. He denied any falsification of his academic record and degree certificate.
However, the judge said the university had said it could not take any decision until the outcome of an internal probe and police investigation.
Three sets of attorneys had represented Dayanand over the years, the last firm saying that they accepted their client had not passed the course but denied any wrongdoing on his part.
They said the university was contractually bound to allow him to enrol for the course and “implored the university to take what steps necessary to facilitate him completing his degree”, Nkosi said.
Shepstone and Wylie, acting for the university, said the matter was subject to ongoing investigation and the university could not consider the request until this was finalised and, even then, only in his favour.
That was when Dayanand launched his court application. Nkosi pointed out that apart from it being “ill conceived”, Dayanand, anyway, would have to apply for readmission to the university to complete his degree.
He had been registered as a student for some five years, so would have to reapply for admission: the original qualification was a five-year programme which had become obsolete and in any event, applications that year were closed.
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