CORRUPTION IN MEDICINE: STAFF CAUGHT IN HOSPITAL FRAUD

Bogus salaries in bank accounts belonging to ghost doctors- Sounds like something out of a movie, but PREMIUM TIMES reports that this is very real and it is happening in our hospitals.

The Federal Medical Centre, Katsina, has suspended two of its staff implicated in "a systematic diversion of doctors salaries into bogus private bank accounts,"PREMIUM TIMES reports. Usman Saifullah and Abba Salisu, who work in the Accounts Department of the hospital, were given a temporary leave from duty based on these allegations, following an interim report from a committee set up by the hospital management.

PREMIUM TIMES detailed how a forensic audit of medical doctors at the health facility revealed millions of naira being funnelled into bank accounts of ghost medical doctors- doctors who do not exist or have seized working.

An analysis of the doctors’ pay register showed a continuous channelling of government funds into the bank accounts of these ghost doctors. For the month of January, 2015, five of the doctors received over N1 million, doctors that left the services of the hospital a year before.

The same payment was repeated in February. In March, the three doctors who were paid a total of N626,000 had also left in 2014, after their housemanship. The pattern in March was repeated in April.

In May, six ghost doctors and an ‘NMA 500 Deduction’ received N1.3 million. A similar pattern was repeated in June.

In July, four doctors who had also finished their housemanship and left were also paid N805,000. As members of the audit committee began pushing for a wholesale audit of the entire hospital – about 1,400 medical and non-medical staff – the committee reported receiving death threats‎.

Bashir Oyeyemi, who served in the forensic audit committee, said that the two suspended staff confessed to receiving salaries of the ghost doctors at the hospital. Dr. Oyeyemi, who has been in hiding for over one week, accused the two staff of being behind the death threats to some members of the forensic audit committee.

“It is reported that the two were given temporary suspension from work instead of being taken into custody of the relevant security agencies to provide useful information about the source of the threats of assassination,” he said in an e-mail to PREMIUM TIMES.

PREMIUM TIMES had contacted Bello Suleiman, the Head of Clinical Services, last week and he said that the recent scandal at the hospital was a “good opportunity” to fight corruption:

“All those people that are involved, the culprits, they will get them and then the necessary sanctions, according to the civil service, will be applied,” Mr. Suleiman, who also serves as the Deputy Medical Director, said.

In his email to PREMIUM TIMES, Mr. Oyeyemi accused Dr. Suleiman of claiming that the diverted ghost worker funds had been used by the hospital to pay for overhead expenses which were not forthcoming from Abuja. He also accused Mr. Suleiman of claiming that the forensic audit committee was of witch-hunting the medical director and members of staff implicated in the ghost doctors scandal.

PREMIUM TIMES later reached Mr. Umar who denied accusations that the hospital management failed to act when informed about death threats to some members of the forensic audit committee.

“The investigation is ongoing. We have strong suspicion. And in order for people not to tamper with investigation, normally, we place them on suspension pending the outcome of the investigation,” he said.

“Administratively, it’s not right for you to rush and conclude your investigation, otherwise you might end up implicating an innocent person, and that person can sue you to court, then it will be very difficult.”