Thrissur: Irregularities amounting to Rs 10 lakh have been uncovered in the Hospital Development Society fund of the Government Medical College Hospital, Thrissur. The finance officer and a team of investigators, working under the supervision of collector VR Krishna Teja, conducted an intensive eight-day inspection that exposed the fraudulent activities.

Although the initial plan was to scrutinise three years' worth of financial records, the complexity of the files hindered the progress, resulting in an examination of only one year's income and expenditure. Moreover, numerous transactions conducted by the hospital remained unverified.

The inspection commenced following a complaint, and on the very first day, the lightning inspection led by the collector discovered an irregularity of Rs. 1.25 lakh for the twelve days of June alone. This finding prompted the team to continue the investigation further. The collector will soon submit a report detailing the irregularities to the government. However, the inspection had to be prematurely halted due to the daily workload of the team, as the audits proved to be more complex than anticipated, primarily due to the lack of previous audits in recent years.

While irregularities were detected in the fund, the question of who orchestrated the fraudulent activities remains unanswered. At present, the police have registered a case against a single temporary staff member. The accounts are managed by a total of three temporary staff and one permanent staff member. The officials allegedly failed to provide satisfactory responses to the collector's inquiries during the inspection.

The primary source of the fraud appears to stem from discrepancies in the recording of amounts received from the counters into the hospital’s main computer system. The temporary staff implicated in the case claimed that they were merely following orders from higher-ranking individuals within the hospital.