It was an alert pharmacist who reported a nurse to a
patient's family when she came to the store to sell stolen medicines. If not
for 33year-old Yogesh Maru the theft of medicines prescribed to a 75-year-old
patient admitted to UN Mehta hospital's ICU would have gone undetected. It
could have possibly complicated the patient's health condition had her family
not found out that medicines meant for her were being stolen and sold off.
Maru, who has been working at Dev Medical Store near
the hospital for three years, could have simply bought back the medicines from
the accused nurse. But he suspected something fishy about the whole thing and,
like a dutiful citizen, promptly reported the matter to the patient's son.
According to the complaint copy submitted by a family
member of patient Ramilaben Pandya, “On Monday, around 2 pm, two nurses were
trying to sell medicines to Dev Medical Store, claiming these were unused. When
Maru questioned one of them, she claimed that these belonged to her relative
who was admitted to the hospital.When she failed to provide the prescription
and the bill, she told Maru that those were with the patient who was on
dialysis.“
Since the medicines had nothing to do with kidney
ailment, a suspicious Maru called up Akshay Pandya, the patient's son.
Maru said, “For the past 10 days, Akshaybhai had been
buying all the prescribed medicines from my store. So I knew the names of those
medicines.When the nurse told me that these belonged to a patient on dialysis,
I found something amiss and called up Akshaybhai. I thought it was my duty to
inform the patient's family members.“ Maru, a resident of Naroda, has been a
pharmacist for the past 15 years. “I have been working with Dev Medical Store
for the past three years and have never come across such an incident,“ he said.
Nurse who flicked patient's medicines
from ICU suspended
Authorities of UN Mehta Institute of Cardiology and
Research Centre have suspended the nurse who allegedly stole a 75year-old
patient's medicines and tried to sell them to a chemist. On Monday, patient
Ramilaben Pandya's son Akshay Pandya bought medicines worth Rs 2,500 from a
nearby pharmacy and handed them over to the nurses of the ward.
The same afternoon he received a call from the owner
of the medical store who informed him that a nurse had come to sell the
medicines he had bought in the morning.Appalled by such insensitive and
unethical behaviour, Akshay submitted a written complaint to the hospital
authorities against the nurses.Following this Dr Kaushik Barot, resident
medical officer, who reports to Dr R K Patel, the hospital's director,
initiated an inquiry into the complaint.“As soon as we received the written
complaint, we started an internal inquiry. Three suspected nurses were working
in the ward that day. After initial investigation, we have been able to trace
the accused. On Wednesday morning we suspended her and have asked her to report
to the inquiry committee,“ said Dr Barot.
According to chemist Yogesh Maru, who had alerted
Akshay, two nurses had approached him with the medicines. However, Dr Barot
said that the second nurse had only accompanied the accused nurse. “The second
nurse who was also under the radar of suspicion is innocent. She had no idea
about it and we are not taking any action against her,“ he added.
The nurse has been identified as Ankita Siddhpura, a
resident of Naroda. A source said, “The nurse had joined the hospital only
eight months ago and we have not received a complaint against her before.“
Talking to Mirror, Sadhana Pandya, the patient's
family member, said, “Hospitals should be more careful with security measures
so that there is no way employees resort to unethical practices and play with
the life of the patient.“
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