Pvt Hospital In Odisha’s Cuttack De-Empaneled For Health Card Fraud

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government on Friday de-empanelled South Point Hospital in Cuttack for alleged irregularities in Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana (BSKY).

According to official sources, Swasthya Mitra deployed at the hospital has been disengaged and the district administration has been requested to shift the patient undergoing treatment under BSKY there to appropriate BSKY-empanelled private hospital or to government facilities for uninterrupted treatment.

“The state team have been instructed to further investigate the claims raised by the hospital earlier vis-a-vis claims scrutinized by Claim Panel Doctors of the State Health Assurance Society,” it further said.

Intensive patient feedback is also being collected through outbound calls to past patients at South Point Hospital in order to check for any past fraud.

Health and Family Welfare secretary Shalini Pandit said that the actions taken would come into immediate effect.

On January 10, Cuttack urban police arrested 5 persons, including the owner of the hospital, on the charge of embezzling the BSKY card funds. The authorities and staff of the hospital in collusion with brokers withdrew several lakhs of rupees by generating fictitious and false bills without the required hospitalization of patients by trapping gullible BSKY cardholders of Bayalish Mouza area on the pretext of providing cash of Rs 2000 for renewal of the health card. Fourteen BSKY cards were seized from the possession of the accused persons.