Covid-19 scam: Shahabuddin Hospital MD, 2 others remanded

A Dhaka court has granted police five days to interrogate Shahabuddin Medical College Hospital (SMCH) Managing Director (MD) Faisal Al Islam and two others in a case filed over a Covid-19 testing and treatment scam.

Metropolitan Magistrate Ashek Imam also rejected their bail pleas during the hearing on Tuesday, after Gulshan police station's Sub-Inspector Md Mashiur Rahman produced them before the court.

The other two are Dr Md Abul Hasnat, an assistant director of SMCH, and the hospital's Inventory Officer Shahriz Kabir Shadik.

The trio was taken to court after, earlier in the day, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) handed them over to Gulshan police. 

Faisal, the son of SMCH Chairman Md Shahabuddin, was handed over on Tuesday noon, while the two others on Sunday night.

Gulshan police Officer-in-Charge SM Kamruzzaman had said that they would seek seven days to grill the trio to unearth more details regarding the scam and irregularities. But the court granted them five days during the remand plea hearing.

On Sunday, RAB had sealed off SMCH in Dhaka’s Gulshan over a series of irregularities, including conducting Covid-19 tests without approval and scamming patients with the wrong treatment.

The hospital's license was also not renewed after June 2019.

During the raid, a RAB mobile court seized unauthorized drugs from the hospital's pharmacy and fined them Tk2 lakh. 

On June 24, a person who had tested Covid-19 positive at SMCH was found negative for the disease by United Hospital.

SMCH had charged the patient with a bill of Tk139,000, calculating the cost of a single service several times.

RAB on Monday night arrested Faisal from Gulshan, while Hasnat and Shahriz were held during Sunday's raid.

The case against them, and four to five unidentified people, was filed by RAB at Gulshan police station on Monday.

RAB officials said SMCH had been treating Covid-19-negative people as Covid-19 patients, and generating a massive amount of bills. The hospital had also been charging excessive money from the patients.

At least 14 Covid-19 patients were receiving treatment at the private hospital and it charged them extra, besides making claims to the patients that they had conducted some tests multiple times without actually carrying out the tests, according to RAB.

Besides, the hospital was giving antibody tests without approval from the health authorities, and a fake Covid-19 test report was issued for money.