Fake patients for incentives: Aam Aadmi Clinic doctor, 2 others get termination notice

Barnala: Having been caught for alleged manipulation of Outpatient department (OPD) patients for earning higher incentives, a medical officer, a pharmacist, and an assistant of the Aam Aadmi Clinic at Ugoke have been served a termination notice on Wednesday.   

The trio were found doubling the patient counts by falsely registering them so that they could generate an incentive from the Punjab government. However, the incident was noticed by the local health department and following this, Barnala civil surgeon Dr Jasbir Singh issued a week’s notice to the three employees.

According to the civil surgeon, the doctor had registered 134 fake patients this month to get incentives. The other two employees were also found working with the doctor for connivance. 

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Talking about this, Dr Singh informed HT " According to the report of the medical officer, 96, 104, 45 and 64 patients visited the outpatient department (OPD) on April 6, 11, 12 and 13, respectively, while the report of the senior medical officer showed that the actual number of patients were 57, 61, 26 and 31, respectively."

The Punjab Government last year deputed a doctor on a contract basis for its flagship project, Aam Aadmi Clinic. The government informed that the new recruits will get a minimum salary at the rate of Rs 50 per patient for 50 patients per day, totalling nearly Rs 63,000 per month along with incentives if the clinic record OPD footfall over 100. 

The incentives are given to a doctor at ₹50 per patient, while a pharmacist gets ₹12 and a clinical assistant gets ₹10 per patient. Considering the current situation, the state health department has directed local health officials to visit clinics where daily OPD footfall is above 100.

On the other hand, the medical officer, pharmacist and clinical assistant have denied their charges and requested a fresh probe into the matter. In this regard, they have filed an appeal for another probe into the allegations.

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