Embezzlement by heads of hospitals

By S.Rajendran

BANGALORE, MARCH 19. The State Government is in the process of evolving a foolproof audit system for the Chief Minister's Medical Relief Fund that has gained the dubious distinction of being a source of ``misappropriation and embezzlement'' for a group of medical practitioners in Bangalore in particular and the various district headquarters in general.

The Government constituted the fund to help poor patients. At a time when corporate hospitals mushroomed, the then Deve Gowda Government thought it fit to constitute the fund for those who could not afford expensive medical treatment.

Reports available with the Government indicate that some heads of major government hospitals, including autonomous medical institutions, have misappropriated money from the fund. The amount so lost annually reportedly varied between Rs. 1 lakh in district headquarters and nearly Rs. 25 lakhs in some major Bangalore hospitals. Strangely, the accounts were not appropriately audited, because the Government believed that medical practitioners and their subordinates would not embezzle funds donated by philanthropists and institutions for poor patients. The Auditor General has also refused to audit them, since there was no specific request from the Government to do so.

A senior official told The Hindu here that the fund had also resulted in yet another form of corruption, among the heads of major hospitals. A patient, who could not spend huge sums of money on major medical procedures such as heart surgery and renal transplant, was allegedly directed to pay ``at least a minimum stipulated amount'', and later, before being discharged from the hospital, was forced to sign on the dotted lines by virtue of which the ``syndicate operating in the hospitals'' took away a huge sum of money as expenditure from the fund for the patient's treatment. Relevant documents, including the tahsildhar's certificate to indicate the annual earnings of the patient, were later attached to the medical case-sheet to make it look genuine.

The Director of Medical Education, Dr. R. Seethalakshmi, who was the central authority monitoring the distribution of funds to medical institutions, and Mr. S.S. Moolge, Financial Advisor to the Medical Education Directorate, told The Hindu that the loopholes in this regard had now been identified. Efforts were on to ask professional auditors and the State Accounts Department to audit the accounts of all institutions, which received grants under the fund. Directions had also been issued to conduct a special audit of the accounts of the Sanjay Gandhi Accident Relief and Research Institute, where large-scale irregularities in expenditure had allegedly surfaced.

Ironically, the Chief Minister's Medical Relief Fund has gained popularity in just under five years. While the State and the Union Governments have contributed Rs. 5 crores towards the fund, donations have crossed Rs. 20 crores. The corpus of Rs. 30 crores, invested in various institutions, was earning a monthly interest of Rs. 35 lakhs, which was meant for distribution to 10 medical institutions. The Income Tax Department, acting on a request from the Chief Minister, had granted tax rebate for the donations made to the fund.

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