Woman poses as a nurse to offer hospital beds, arrested

Delhi Police on Monday confirmed they have arrested the woman, filed a case of cheating, and are probing the case. Police said, prima facie (at first sight), it appears that the woman was working alone and used a forged AIIMS identity card.

A woman was posing as a nurse from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi, and taking money to get patients admitted to Lok Nayak hospital, the city’s largest Covid-19 facility, according to a complaint filed by the hospital’s chief medical officer(CMO).

Bed occupancy displayed at Lok Nayak, on Monday. (HT Photo)

Delhi Police on Monday confirmed they have arrested the woman, filed a case of cheating, and are probing the case. Police said, prima facie (at first sight), it appears that the woman was working alone and used a forged AIIMS identity card.

Police said the CMO wrote to the central district police on May 2 after being informed that a “nurse from AIIMS” was getting critical patients admitted to the facility. The CMO, Gurpreet Singh, alleged that, on the night of May 2, junior resident doctors spotted the woman with a 66-year-old Covid-19 patient inside the hospital.

“The woman was visiting the hospital regularly and she posed as a health worker in full PPE kit. She identified herself as Heena in her identity card and to our junior resident doctors. Our officers found her behaviour suspicious, and reported the matter to the police. A police team reached the spot and took her into custody. She was taking money to admit critical patients. Our CMO suspected that she may have been running this racket for quite some time and so wrote to the police,” said a hospital official, who asked not to be named.

Delhi Police officers said they took the woman into custody, and her identity was later revealed as Uttarakhand resident Geeta Saroja. Police found two forged identity cards on her, both identifying her as Heena, one as a nurse from AIIMS and other as an NGO worker.

An investigating officer, who asked not to be named, said, “She was taking money from critical patients who queue up outside the hospital. So far, it looks like she was working alone. But we are still probing her contacts.”