7 Bihar health officials suspended for COVID-19 testing fraud

Patna: The state government has fired seven health officials after they were found guilty of fraud in COVID-19 testing in Bihar.

The government acted after the local media uncovered the large-scale fraud in the testing of COVID-19 cases across the state, highlighting how fake names were entered in the health department registers to fudge testing data. The fraud was reported from Jamui, an eastern Bihar district, some 170 km from Patna.

While four doctors, including a district civil surgeon, have been placed under suspension, three health officials were dismissed from service for entering fake information in the hospital registers.

“Action has been taken on the basis of reports of irregularities received from the district magistrate concerned,” Bihar health minister Mangal Pandey told the media on Saturday. He added investigation had been ordered across the state and 12 separate teams had been formed to probe the cases. “Anyone found guilty during the probe will face action,” the minister warned.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar said he had sought details of irregularities from the health secretary adding irregularities had been found in only one district of the state. “If anyone is found guilty of committing fraud, tough action will be taken. If someone has not conducted COVID-19 test but still prepared the data, it is very wrong,” the chief minister said. The chief minister has also asked the heath secretary to take the matter seriously and conduct a thorough probe to bring the culprits to book.

The action followed after the local media highlighted glaring irregularities in COVID-19 test data in at least three districts of Bihar where fake names and mobile numbers were entered into the hospital registers. “At a primary health centre in Jamui, ‘0000000000’ has been written as the mobile numbers of 28 people out of 48 who were allegedly tested for COVID-19 on January 16,” said the media report.

Manipulating data

The matter also figured prominently in the Rajya Sabha on Friday. Raising the issue in the Rajya Sabha, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) parliamentarian Manoj Kumar Jha sought for a high-level probe into the matter in the light of media reports suggesting fudging and manipulation of the testing data.

“The number of tests to detect the coronavirus infection jumped from 10,000 to 100,000 in seven days and to 200,000 in a fortnight. Names of people registered as being tested either don’t exist or the contact numbers and other details are false,” Jha said.

He added further, “There is no match of names and mobile numbers...10 times ‘0’ has also been given as the contact number...no contact-tracing could be established,” the parliamentarian alleged.

According to a latest report of the Bihar health department, the state has carried out a total number of 21,877,920 COVID-19 tests in the state so far since the first case was detected in March 2020. Similarly, the state has reported a total of 261,646 cases so far with 1,522 deaths.

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