Vigilance squads under the Sambalpur division raided various hospitals in remote locations to check the attendance of the Government doctors in eight districts including Sundargarh and found that the doctors attended hardly eight to 10 days in a month at their work places, but claimed full attendance and salary every month.
“Besides conducting a surprise check, we also interrogated the hospital staff, patients and locals and came to know the doctors of many rural hospital are quite irregular and hardly visiting eight to ten days in a month,” said Sambalpur Vigilance Superintendent of Police JN Pankaj.
“We have recently sent a detail list of doctors to the Director (Vigilance), Cuttack, who have been found guilty in this connection to their authorities with a copy to the district Collectors, for initiating appropriate action against them,” said Pankhaj.
He further narrated that from Vigilance Directorate the list will further be sent to the State Health Department for further action against the doctors. “As we have the right to conduct checking in any Government offices, including the hospitals, we conducted it since this also amounts to corruption, besides affecting the health system,” Pankaj added.
Raids were conducted in as many as 11 hospitals in eight districts which include Sundargarh, Rourkela police district, Sambalpur, Jharsuguda, Deogarh, Bargarh, Sonepur and Balangir and as many as 14 doctors posted in these hospitals were found irregular in their attendance. Vigilance sources said that hardly these doctors attended maximum eight to ten days of duty where as the rest of the days are managed by pharmacists and other staff.
In some locations, the pharmacists were maintaining the outdoor registers and also providing first aid treatment to the patients in absence of the doctors, said Pankaj. In some locations, we found no diet register was maintained for the indoor patients and diets were not provided, he informed.