Haryana hospital admits fake patients for license

Kurukshetra (Haryana): You have seen Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt's 'Munna Bhai MBBS' wherein a young man passes himself off as the protagonist during a pre-medical entrance examination. But a private hospital in Haryana's Kurukshetra has gone a step further allegedly admitting fake patients to show bed strength ahead of its mandatory inspection by the Medical Council of India (MCI).

Adesh Hospital in Kurukshetra allegedly paid villagers to pose as patients on October 3 in order to meet the MCI guidelines that state that a hospital seeking to admit 100 MBBS students must have 600 beds with at least 70 percent patient occupancy.

A person, an alleged employee of the hospital, can be heard in an audio clip offering money to villagers for posing as patients. A probe has been ordered by the state government in this regard.

JD Singh, a former village head, alleged that he had got a phone call from their employee who offered to give Rs 200 to each villager who would pose as a patient before the inspection team from the state health department.

"Sir, we need people from your village…tomorrow there is (an) inspection at our college. The health minister is coming. We want to take these people with us. We will admit them as patients. They just have to pose as patients. We will arrange free food and pay Rs. 200 per person," the alleged employee is heard telling Singh.

The hospital, however, denied that the alleged person in the audio clip was an employee.