Two nurses working at Kerala Medical College in Thiruvananthapuram were arrested for returning medicines bought by a patient to the store without the patient’s knowledge. 29-year-old YN Shameer and 33-year-old Bivin S Lal were arrested by the Medical College police on Sunday morning after they returned the medicines and kept the money spent on buying them.
Speaking to TNM, an official from the Medical College police station said that Shameer, a native of Kollam, and Bivin, who is a native of Thiruvananthapuram, were arrested at around 9 am and case has been filed against them under Section 409 (Criminal breach of trust by public servant, or by banker, merchant or agent) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
“The medicines, which were worth around Rs 11,000, were bought by the son of the patient, who has been undergoing treatment at the Department of Neurosurgery at the hospital. The patient, who has been identified as 50-year-old Baby, who was undergoing treatment following a bike accident. The medicines that were bought were necessary for her injections post the surgery,” said the police official.
According to the police, the medicines were bought based on the instructions of one of the nurses and he had also asked for the bill in order to ensure that the right medicines were bought.
“Since the medicines that were bought were expensive, the patient’s relatives had approached the medical store to request for a duplicate bill, which is when they found out that the medicines had been returned to the store. They then filed a complaint with the police,” said an official at the police station.
The incident took place on Friday night and the relatives of the patient informed the hospital authorities. The police managed to identify the nurses based on CCTV visuals at the medical store. The duo was suspended by hospital authorities.
As per a report by Manoramaonline, the patient’s son had to mortgage his mobile phone and Aadhaar card at the medical store to buy the medicine. He also had to borrow money from friends to pay the medical bills.
“The accused are in police custody and are still being questioned. We will have to find out from their friends and family whether they have been involved in similar activities in the past,” said the police.