Amritsar: Illegal entry of touts to Government Medical College blocked
"They would ask the patients that the hospital is no good and they could arrange the same services for them at much cheaper rates. Once they trapped a patient, they minted money."
Amritsar: A wall has been constructed at the Government Medical College Amritsar at the gate which was earlier used by fraudsters and the agents of pharmaceutical firms and medical laboratories to enter the premises and lure the patients.
The wall was created after a long struggle and protests led by a local activist. The gate was constructed ten years ago with the help of the then minister to allow some people to enter the premises, said the social activist, Ankur Gupta.
Gupta said that he had been writing letters and issuing complaints regarding this for a long time now with no consequences, and the gate was only closed after the intervention of MLA Kunwar Vijay Partap Singh.
According to Ankur, several agents of private hospitals, labs, and chemists used to enter the college area on the illegal date undetected and lured the patients from getting treated at their private hospitals instead of the government hospital. He said, "They would ask the patients that the hospital is no good and they could arrange the same services for them at much cheaper rates. Once they trapped a patient, they minted money."
Alleging that these agents roamed inside the building freely with free access to patients' wards, the activist told the Tribune India, "This is a kind of a medical mafia. With the illegal entry now blocked we would focus more on the people who are befooling poor patients."
Medical Dialogues team had earlier reported a cheating incident where a doctor from Mangaluru had been duped of Rs 60000 by an online fraudster who tricked the former into sharing his credit card information. As per the complaint from the doctor to the cyber police, he received a call from a person informing him to avail of reward points for his card and that it was the last day to redeem the points. The doctor, who believed the fraudster, gave his credit card information and also shared the OTP, after which a sum of Rs 60,000 was debited from his account.
Also Read:Mangaluru Doctor duped of Rs 60000 by cyber fraudster
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