Mumbai: Commission racket at Tata Memorial Hospital was going on for past 3 years, says cops

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In a shocking revelation, it has come to light that a commission racket operated by staffers of Tata Memorial Hospital (TMH) in Mumbai has been allegedly ongoing for at least three years, an official said.

The racket allegedly involves the hospital employees receiving illicit payments from an imaging center, and they even sought advance money from the center to celebrate personal occasions like birthdays, family functions, and picnics. Bhoiwada police arrested another ward boy on Monday, and transcripts of WhatsApp chats related to the racket span around 100 pages, the police sources said.

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The illegal activities first came to the attention of the hospital's security guards, who received a tip-off about the involvement of some staffers in the commission racket. Acting upon the information, the guards followed two ward boys who had left their duties, and caught them red-handed accepting a bribe of Rs. 3.80 lakh from the manager of Infinity Medical Centre, an imaging center located in Parel. Subsequently, the ward boys were taken to Bhoiwada police station, and an offense was registered against them. Further investigation into the matter revealed that a total of 21 staffers were involved in the racket, sources added.

An official said, during the interrogation of the arrested individuals, it was disclosed that the commission racket had been operating for the past three years. Authorities suspect that the racket began after Covid-19 restrictions were lifted, as evident from the chats between the hospital staffers and the imaging center's employees. Shockingly, many of the staffers demanded advance payments and additional money from the imaging center under the pretext of celebrating birthdays and family functions. The employees at the imaging center readily complied, aiming to encourage the staffers to send more patients their way.

During the course of the investigation, another staffer, identified as Shailendra Singh (42), was implicated in the scandal. He had gone incommunicado since Saturday but was apprehended when he reported to the hospital on Wednesday. Singh works as a ward boy at TMH, and his arrest marks the twelfth arrest in the case, police sources said.

Police have retrieved approximately 100 pages of chat transcripts between the arrested accused, including Singh, and the employees of the imaging center. These transcripts serve as substantial evidence of the illegal racket, wherein the staffers even discussed the percentages of commission they would receive. The chats obtained by the police cover conversations until July 15th, the day when the first arrests were made, the official said.

TMH, which caters to both General and Private sections of patients, witnesses an approximate footfall of 1000 patients on OPD days, with around 25 to 30% being fresh patients. The implicated staffers kept a close eye on the relatives of both fresh and old patients visiting the hospital from out of town.

"The police are likely to summon and record statements from doctors and TMH officials in connection with the racket. It appears that the racket would spring into action as soon as a doctor prescribed imaging or other tests, and presently, it has been uncovered that the staffers across the OPD guided patients towards private imaging centers. However, the involvement of other hospital officials cannot be ruled out," a senior police official said.