Rourkela: The three-member team of the National Health Mission (NHM) that arrived Tuesday at Rourkela Government Hospital (RGH) to conduct enquiry into the alleged gross irregularities at the premier government health facility, carried out verification and scrutiny of related documents for the second consecutive day, Thursday.
The team is learnt to have seized many incriminating documents related to the corruption charges.
Shedding lights on the probe, Director RGH Ganesh Das said, “The members of the inquiry panel are enquiring into the corruption unearthed recently. They are looking into all irregularities such as those related to security, laundry, theft of the mortuary freezers et al.” The Director said the team was scheduled to leave in the night after wrapping up the probe.
He said the Hospital manager, Mohit Kumar has been issued two show cause notices by his appointing authority – the national health mission (NHM) –, but he did not respond to those. He termed him as a ‘habitual offender’ saying he himself had issued him three show cause notices for his delinquency.
The NHM team consists of Priyadarshi Dash, senior consultant P&IM, Malaya Kumar Panigrahi, state finance manager, NHM and Ajit Kumar Biswal, consultant HR, NHM.
It is worth mentioning here that OP (July 9 edition) had reported extensively about the gross irregularities in laundry billing at the hospital.
The corruptions in RGH snowballed into a major scandal when special consideration was shown to a vendor, M/s Mediaid Medical Ancillary Services (MMAS) which was paid a whopping Rs 20 lakh for providing ‘excellent service’. It was allegedly done by the then incumbent Director of RGH. The vendor was given a five year contract in 2020, It claimed the amount after three years.
The whole payment process was allegedly initiated by hospital manager Mohit Kumar. Kumar has reportedly obtained anticipatory bail in a corruption case pertaining to four missing freezers from the hospital mortuary. A show cause notice has been issued to him on July 6 by the mission director of NHM, Odisha.
Kumar has been issued the notice on three grounds: For availing leave without prior approval of the superintendent cum director of RGH, availing the EL from the June 24 to July 4 without any valid reason/document in support, and involvement in gross irregularities in the procurement and disposal of BS freeze chamber for RGH mortuary.
Both the NHM team and the Director have termed the EL as ‘unauthorised’. “This may invite big trouble for him (Kumar),” said a source in RGH.
PNN