Dr Milind P Chitley, the Andheri-based family physician, prominent mountaineer and co-founder of Hills & Trails – a trekking agency – is among five doctors missing from Mumbai, including his wife Megha, who is a pathologist. The five doctors are part of 61 Indian travellers to Kailash Mansarovar that Chitley was leading when the group was reported missing after a flash flood hit the Tibet side of the customs and immigration point in Nepal.
Among the missing are Dr Anand Deshpande, who heads the blood bank of Hinduja Hospital, and his wife Dr Gayatri Deshpande, head of the department of gynaecology and obstetrics at Nanavati hospital. Officers from Max Hospitals (which manages Nanavati hospital) in Kathmandu are also trying to look for details. Also missing is former health minister Dr Deepak Sawant’s wife Anita’s dentist Dr Meenakshi Ramani, and her relatives. “I have made several calls to helpline numbers over the last few hours.
Chitley, 64, who travelled with his wife, also a doctor, has decades of experience trekking in the Himalayas, having started mountaineering in 1983-84 while still a student of medicine at Grant Medical College, and eventually completing the basic and advanced courses at the Mountaineering Institute of Darjeeling. He was selected as the climbing doctor for the First Indian Civilian Expedition to Kanchenjunga, an 8,000-metre peak, in 1988. Pradnya Mokashi, Dr Chitley’s neighbour in Andheri East, said the doctor had been to Nepal more than 17 times and knew the terrain well.
A senior officer from the hospital said, “We are in touch with their daughter who is in Bengaluru, but have yet to get any information about her parents. A spokesperson for the hospital said, “We have reached out to the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu and received a list of rescued people, in which Dr Gayatri’s name does figure. “Dr Meenakshi’s husband — Dr Sanjay Ramani — is in a state of trauma,” said Sawant. I do not know how to get in touch with my wife and the others missing or get any information about their safety,” said Ramani. Through that expedition, he rescued climbers suffering from serious high-altitude medical issues, including pulmonary edema and hypothermia, said his anxious friends, waiting to hear from him. He also treated cases of frostbite and helped bring the affected climbers back to Mumbai for further treatment, said one of his friends.
