The Coimbatore Medical College and ESI Hospital has given a complaint against people posing as ‘paid attenders’ on campus and demanding money from patients to take care of them on Monday. Based on a complaint, the hospital authorities along with the police have removed 17 ‘paid attenders’ from the campus and detained a contract worker of ESI Hospital.
Initially, the Medical Officer of the hospital gave a complaint to the police based on the order of the Dean. In an order, the Dean of Coimbatore Medical College and ESI Hospital, Dr Raveendran, instructed the medical officer to give a police complaint and take action against the persons involved in the fraudulent practice.
The ‘paid attenders’ are not employees of the ESI Hospital but they go to the hospital and demand money from the patients to take care of them.
Talking to TNM, Dean Dr Raveendran said, “The patients informed us about the paid attender system and there were social media messages informing the same. The attenders will come along with the relatives of the patient and will stay in the COVID-19 wards without any information.”
“Following this we have removed the paid attenders and have appointed a few people to attend to the patients.So from now on, the hospital will itself provide attenders to COVID-19 patients,” he said.
Meanwhile, the ESI Hospital also handed over a contract employee Balaji (25) to the Singanallur police for demanding money from patients. The Dean said, “Balaji has been demanding money for taking tests and received Rs 30,000 from a few people promising that he will get a job for them at the hospital. So, we have handed him over to the police.”
When asked if Balaji was bringing the ‘paid attenders’ into the hospital, he said, “The investigations are going on and there is still no clarity.”
The recent spike in COVID-19 cases in Coimbatore has filled 50% of the ICU beds and the 14 ICU beds in ESI Medical hospital are already occupied.
As of Monday, Tamil Nadu recorded 10,941 new Covid cases and 44 new deaths. Of the total new cases, Chennai recorded 3,347 new cases followed by Coimbatore with 735 new cases.