Bihar health official flees with 4,000 COVID-19 test kits
Cost of kits in his possession estimated at over Rs 2 million
Patna: A health official has fled with 4,000 Antigen test kits to be used for COVID-19 testing from a government hospital in Bihar. The cost of the kits in his possession is estimated at Rs2.16 million.
Officials said the lab technician Sharad Kumar received 4,000 kits from the storeroom of the health department in Jamui town to deposit them with a local referral hospital located in Chakai block in the same district.
The kits were procured over two days on January 22 and February 4 but soon after receiving them, the man mysteriously went missing. The health department failed to locate him despite all efforts.
“We have registered a case against the missing technician and also begun the process to dismiss him from the service,” local civil surgeon Dr Vinay Kumar Sharma told the media on Friday.
No contact
Another health official Ramesh Prasad said the technician posted with the referral hospital had been missing for the past five day without any information. “We tried to contact him so many times but are unable to get near him. His mobile is also switched off,” Prasad added.
Jamui, an eastern Bihar district, has come under fire for the second time in a fortnight. Earlier this month, the state government fired seven health officials after they were found guilty in the COVID-19 testing fraud and the matter figured prominently in the Parliament.
The government acted swiftly 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.
While four doctors, including a district civil surgeon, were placed under suspension, three health officials were dismissed from service for entering fake information in the hospital registers.