Bed allotment scam: Police question doctors

They prioritise allotment of beds based on severity of COVID-19 infection

Sleuths from the Central Crime Branch (CCB) police probing the alleged bed allotment scam have begun an audit of all beds allotted through the city’s civic body in April 2021.

With more than 10,000 beds allotted by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike during in April, a senior police official said the process was time-consuming.

“We have already identified at least 12 cases where beds were blocked in a person’s name only to be manually changed and allotted to someone else. But manual change cannot be concluded as bed-blocking. We are investigating these cases. However, families of patients who may have paid a bribe are not forthcoming, and we are hitting a dead end there,” the officer explained.

Meanwhile, CCB questioned doctors in charge of bed allotment at all the city’s eight war rooms on Friday.

“Based on emergency calls made to the helpline, these doctors prioritise allotment of beds based on severity of the disease, which makes them crucial to the process of either bed allotment or blocking,” the official said.

CCB has already arrested the doctor in charge of the South zone war room. Sleuths questioned 18 persons on Friday, including doctors in war rooms, representatives of private hospitals and ambulance service providers.

“We have collected CCTV camera footage from all the eight war rooms. We are in the process of analysing them to see if there was any unauthorised person in the war rooms influencing bed allotment,” said the official.

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