King George’s Medical University (KGMU) sacked eight contractual workers for selling cheap medicines and implants meant for poor patients in the open market.
According to a source at the hospital, many more involved in this scam will be exposed in the coming days as the probe reaches its final stage.
The expelled staff members are facing charges of misusing patients’ unique IDs for issuing medicines and implants that were much cheaper than those available in the open market. The medicines and implants were not given to the patients but sold to private medical shops outside the campus. The items had been brought by KGMU under the hospital revolving fund (HRF).
“The matter came to light when it was found that sale of particular items such as stoma bags was very high at one of the HRF shops on campus,” said a senior KGMU official involved in the probe.
Under the HRF, the university negotiates the rates of different medicines and implants used for patients and obtains them at the cheapest price possible. The discounts offered by companies are up to 70% on select items. Hence patients get these items at a very low cost from over a dozen HRF shops on the campus.
The fraud came to light when staff at the HRF shop in Centenary hospital was questioned about the high sale of a particular implant (stoma bag).
{{/usCountry}}The fraud came to light when staff at the HRF shop in Centenary hospital was questioned about the high sale of a particular implant (stoma bag).
{{/usCountry}}“The staff there didn’t cooperate with the probe and didn’t name anyone involved in the fraud. Hence, we ousted all the eight staff deployed there. The screening of documents was going on to find out the quantum of the items sold fraudulently,” said the official.
The KGMU probe committee includes Prof AA Mahdi, chairperson of the HRF, Dr HS Pahwa, Dr Anurag Rai, the store in charge of the HRF and three other faculty members.
A meeting of the probe panel has been called on Tuesday to discuss the progress of the probe and also measures that can be taken to stop such mishandling of stock for patients.
How the fraud was exposed
The staff at the counters of the HRF shop obtained the patient unique ID. The same ID was filled in the server showing that the patients or their attendants had purchased specific medicines or implants. The receipt was issued and payment was done against the receipt. This purchase was done at a discounted rate which sometimes was up to 70%. The same items were then supplied to stores outside the campus where they were sold to the patients at MRP and the difference between discount and MRP was shared between staff and the shopkeepers. The fraud came to light when HRF staff was questioned over the excessive sale of stoma bags used to make an artificial stool passage in a patient.