CHANDIGARH: They are dealing in huge money. It’s prone to pilfering and yet the agencies funding treatment of poor patients have no mechanism in place to check it.
HT has come across several instances of fraud in relief fund money released by the Prime Minister’s Office and state governments for poor patients.
As per documents with HT, a Bihar resident underwent a kidney transplant a few years back and was getting a follow up treatment at Department of Nephrology of the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) till recently.
Two years back, he got Rs 50,000 from the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund (PMNRF) for reimbursement of medical bills at PGI.
He also received another Rs 50,000, again from PMNRF, under a slightly changed name. From Bihar’s Chief Minister’s Relief Fund, he received another Rs 1.5 lakh, changing his name a little again.
There is, however, no doubt that this patient underwent kidney transplant at PGI and also required financial help.
Another patient, who underwent a similar treatment, got Rs 1.5lakh from the Directorate of Health Services, Bihar, on July 8, 2008.
Five days later, on July 13, he received another Rs 1.5 lakh from the same office under a
Changed name. .
However, this time, the address was changed. .
He got another Rs 1.5 lakh from the Jharkhand government under the domicile of Harazibagh.
The entire money of Rs 4.5 lakh was sanctioned in one week.
HT found that in the past few years PGI’s Procurement Cell had noticed around two-dozen cases of getting money from multiple agencies.
The cell had even raised objection on this rising phenomenon of forgery early this year and had written to various agencies providing funds for the treatment of these patients.
The cell cancelled some of the files getting money from multiple agencies.
This kind of forgery – in which patients really existed – was mostly happening in cases with renal transplant.
Most of such patients are coming from Bihar and Jharkhand, and these are the states that provide maximum private grant to PGI.
According to sources in PGI’s Procurement Cell, owing to the lack of coordination and check among funding agencies, it is easy to forge the documents.
There is involvement of some top health officials in these states as they easily provide funding on the forged documents, sources add.
In some instances it was found that patients were getting money from the states they were not residents of.
SOURCE-HT
