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5 touts held for cheating patients at IGIMS
PATNA Five people were arrested Thursday for allegedly deceiving and weaning away poor patients from the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS) to private clinics, druggists, pathological and radiological laboratories
PATNA
Five people were arrested Thursday for allegedly deceiving and weaning away poor patients from the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS) to private clinics, druggists, pathological and radiological laboratories.
An FIR was lodged against them on Friday, Patna’s senior superintendent of police (SSP) Upendra Kumar Sharma said.
This was the first time in which the hospital administration involved the local police to curb the menace of touts on the hospital campus, said IGIMS medical superintendent Dr Manish Mandal.
“Of late, we received several complaints of touts being active on our hospital campus and misleading poor and gullible patients to private shops and health centres. This was also defeating the PM’s initiative to provide quality drugs at affordable prices through the Pradhan Mantri Bharatiya Jan Aushadi Kendra (PMBJAK) on our hospital campus,” he said.
“The touts would generally mislead the poor patients about the efficacy of the generic medicines available at the drug store or the investigations done at the IGIMS, and wean them away to private drug stores, pathological laboratories and radiological centres, where the charges were high. In return, the middlemen would pocket commission from private vendors,” said Dr Mandal.
“We took help of the city superintendent of police and gave the police access to our CCTV control room to curb the tout menace, which was leading to anti-social activities and creating law and order problem on the hospital campus. The suspects were identified on the basis of the CCTV footage and the police in plain clothes caught the culprits red-handed on Thursday,” Dr Mandal said.
The five arrested were identified as Sanjay Yadav of Jehanabad district, Sonu Choubey, Ravi Bhushan, Lala Prasad and Lallan Prasad from Patna. Some others managed to give the police the slip.
The IGIMS has of late taken a few initiatives to curb the menace of touts on the hospital campus. Providing medicines to in-patients as part of a package system for any procedure requiring hospitalisation, online registration for outdoor patient department (OPD) consultation, opening of Amrit and Pradhan Mantri Bharatiya Jan Aushadhi stores on the hospital campus are among some such initiatives.
The Jan Aushadhi Kendra was opened on the IGIMS campus on September 24 last year. Quality generic drugs are available at this store at 75% less than the branded medicines sold in open market.
The institute has already instructed its doctors to prescribe generic drugs to patients.
The tout menace is prevalent in other state-run medical college hospitals.
