Retd BMC vigilance officer raises doubts of Security Scam in Mumbai Hospitals

In a letter addressed to the Shri Vinod Tawde, Medical Education Minister, Maharashtra, retd BMC official asks the minister to look into possible security scam amounting to Rs 97 crores in government hospitals

Off lately, the medical community seems be under a constant threat of attacks from disgruntled attendants. In the past one year, reports have come from across the country about resident doctors being attacked and beaten up for no fault of theirs. Better Security of medical personnel has been on the top set of demands of innumerable strikes across, with respective governments always promising on adressing the issue at the earliest.

Such was the case with Maharashtra where BMC apart from deploying its own security in its hospitals, also engaged the services of private security providers the supplement the same after repeated attacks. However, despite more than adequate security guards, repeated incidences of violence have raised doubts on the efficacy of these measures.

In a letter addressed to the State Medical Education Minister, a retd BMC official has raised another concern regarding the validity of these security measures. Hinting at the possibility of a scam, Mr I.C Sisodia, Vigilance officer ( Special Duty) Retd Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, questioned the appointment of M/s Eagle Pvt Ltd by the BMC to be appointed at a claimed cost of Rs 97 crore.

The letter also questioned the ability of the agency to face the daily challenges in a hospital including incidents of theft, child lifting, fraud, militancy of irate patients' relative and terrorism. It alluded to the last incident at KEM hospital where a doctor was being beaten up by rods and the security guards seeing the violence fled the sight.

The letter also blamed the hospital authorities failing to check and object against the poor quality of guards, adding to the danger that medical personnel face, and the Retd Vigilance officer demanded the minister's intervention to investigate the alleged fraud.

MARD supporting the points raised by the Sisodia has also asked the minister for an enquiry into the matter. Speaking to Medical Dialogues, Sagar Mundada, President MARD said,"We strongly hope that proper enquiry committee will be set up to investigate these allegations of Rs 97 crore scam by next week as well as the fact whether the KEM incident could have been averted had the security guard been of a decent quality."