BHUBANESWAR: The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has detected large scale irregularities in management of Covid hospitals during the pandemic between 2020 and 2022.
The audit found irregularities in payment of Rs 161.61 crore to private hospitals, which functioned as dedicated Covid hospitals (DCHs) during the two-year period. The irregularities were noticed in passing the bills for payment without proper verification of documents.
The Health and Family Welfare department had received Rs 2,868.8 crore from different sources, including the State Disaster Relief Fund (SDRF), Emergency Covid Response Package (ECRP) and Public Health Response Fund (PHRF) for preparedness and prevention related functions in the state to manage the Covid-19 pandemic.
The CAG examined the related records and documents of 18 DCHs, located in Khurda and Cuttack districts and found that Rs 7,24.50 crore was paid for treatment of 51,967 Covid patients in the 18 DCHs in the first two waves of the Covid-19 pandemic.
As per the guidelines, the DCHs, managed by private hospitals, had to provide necessary treatment, to Covid patients who had been referred for admission by the collector/municipal authorities concerned. The DCHs were to submit bills with supporting documents to the authorised medical officer (AMO) and an authorised person, who was an OAS officer, designated by the state government. But the bills submitted by the eight DCHs, out of the 18 test-checked DCHs, were not properly scrutinised by the AMO for ensuring the claims.
While the AMO had signed the bills without verification of patient-wise data like type of beds, number of days stayed in each bed in rest of the hospitals, the BMC had passed the bills without the countersignature of the authorised person.
The audit also detected that Rs 2.63 crore was not deducted towards PPE kits from the bills of DCHs which were provided 26,972 kits by the state medical corporation free of cost. Besides, around Rs 2.62 crore of inadmissible payment was made to a hospital during April to December 2020 even though it submitted bills in 315 cases where same bed numbers and periods of treatment were found repeated for multiple patients.
Similarly, irregularity has been detected in payment of Rs 3.8 crore to six hospitals apart from the excess payment Rs 2.85 crore towards diet allowance.