Why is it difficult to find beds in Bengaluru hospitals? Here's the real reason
In a well networked scam, BBMP officials allegedly joined hands with brokers to block hospital beds and allegedly charged heavy amount from symptomatic patients to allocate beds for treatment. A case has been registered and two staff have been arrested.
FollowBengaluru: Reeling under Covid crisis and shortage of hospital beds, oxygen and remdesivir injection for treating patients, a scam has come to light wherein Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) officials were hand in glove blocking hospital beds and allocating the same to desperate families for double the amount.
As per the reports, Nethravathy, a social worker and her nephew Rohit Kumar aged 22 have been arrested and the case is now transferred to Central Crime Branch, Bengaluru.
Deputy Commissioner of Police, Bengaluru South, Harish Pandey was quoted as saying, "Our team approached them for beds posing as relatives of a Covid-19 patient. We then realised that the duo, from Begur, would charge between Rs 20,000 and Rs 40,000 after understanding the financial status of the person seeking a bed."
He also revealed the modus operandi of the accused person. As per the officer, the accused used to approach victims over WhatsApp messages on groups. He believes that these persons may have had contact in Covid-19 war room and may also have a network with private hospitals.
Earlier in the day on Tuesday, Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya was flanked by MLAs Satish Reddy, Ravi Subramanyam and Uday Grudachar who barged inside Covid war room and demanded an explanation from Nodal Officer Tulasi Madineni of the scam that reportedly took place from war room.
"My party may be in administration, but we cannot sit quietly looking at this level of corruption that has led to many deaths. I apologise to the families of people who died because of this unholy nexus. We cannot bring back those who have died, but we want to prevent more people from dying,” Surya was quoted as saying.
When people are struggling to find a bed in the hospital and begging everyone including MPs and MLAs to give them one, there are hospitals who say that no beds are vacant," Surya further added.
How scam works
Surya alleges that once the bed is booked, if the patient doesn’t get admitted in 12 hours, it is automatically unblocked for other patients. In this 12-hour window, agents contact patients looking for admission and divert the beds to them. We contacted multiple people in whose names beds were blocked and found that they had recovered long back. They were not aware that beds were booked in their name.
Surya further alleged that that a person was in home isolation. But in the war room crooks booked beds in 12 hospitals in 12 days using the same BU number. All these things happened 20 days after the patient’s recovery.
BBMP Nodal Officer Tulasi Madineni on the other hand told Asianet Newsable that such incidents will not be repeated and the palike is working on new software to prevent such mismanagement.
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