Bhubaneswar: It may seem incredible, but the fact is that healthcare personnel at the Kendrapara Covid Care Hospital consumed 65 per cent of the total money allocated to the facility on food and accommodation instead of spending the money on patients.
The irregularity came to the fore when an RTI activist from the region, Prakash Chandra Das, filed an application demanding to know the amount allocated to the centre and the expenditure by the hospital authorities under different heads.
Das claimed that the authorities in charge of running the Covid Care hospital in the district have spent a whopping Rs 98 lakh from the total amount they received district Collector of Kendrapara from April to October, 2020.
Das had filed the RTI application August 7, but the district authorities took more than three months to provide the information sought by him. Das succeeded in getting the information only after lodging a first appeal with the higher authorities over the inordinate delay.
The information provided by the District Public Health Officer of Kendrapara revealed that the office of Chief Medical Officer had received a sum of Rs 1,50,64,111 from the Collector for the management of Covid Care Centre during the above-mentioned period.
The RTI reply revealed that the CDMO office received Rs 77,51,380 towards food expenses of the doctors, and paramedical staff. Similarly, around Rs 15.21 lakh was spent on the accommodation and food charges for doctors from a private medical college and hospital in Bhubaneswar who are working at the hospital on temporary basis.
Meanwhile, the administration spent another Rs 5 lakh as working lunch cost of the call centre staff. Altogether, the district health officials spent Rs 98,52,530 on food-related expenses, which is about 65 per cent of the total expenditure.