Bengaluru: New BBMP site for COVID beds coming with rules for accountability, transparency

Days after unearthing the Bengaluru Bed Scam, BJP Lok Sabha MP Tejasvi Surya on Monday said the administration has institutionalised the booking in order to bring accountability on the war room officials. While addressing a press conference to inform of the steps taken by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to bring transparency in the allocation of beds in the city, Tejasvi Surya said the state government has brought some major reforms in the existing system which will be implemented within 100 hours. Exposing the racket, Tejasvi Surya had earlier stated that the city had enough beds, but none of them were available as war room personnel have been running a racket of falsely blocking beds and then allotting them to those they please.

To bring transparency, here are the reforms introduced by the administration:

1. System will show the official's information who booked bed for patients:

Tejasvi Surya said earlier the system did not show which official from the war room booked the bed, however, now the war room official's id will be tagged to the booking, making the officials more accountable.

2.  SMS will be sent to the patient

With the new reforms, Tejasvi Surya said the system will auto-generate and send an SMS to the patient as soon as the bed is booked for him. Earlier, a call was made to the patients and a screenshot was sent to them, resulting in a systemic delay in the allotment of beds.

3. Bed blocking time reduced from 10 hours to 4 hours:

After the allotment of bed to a patient, he had 10 hours to admit himself to the hospital. This lengthy time span gave way for the officials to adopt malpractices. Hence the time span has been reduced to 4 hours. If a patient does not get himself admitted in 4 hours, the hospital bed will automatically be allotted to the next needy patient in queue.

4. Manual unblocking of beds removed from system:

The process of manual unblocking of beds led to a lot of irregularities. Tejasvi Surya said the corrupt officials used proxy names of people who were either discharged or are under home isolation, to book the bed in favour of someone else. Hence, the system of manually unblocking of hospital bed and its re-allotment has been removed. There will be a queuing system for the allotment of beds which will happen through a transparent waiting list on the basis of merit and seniority of age. 

"No amount of money or influence can help in buying a bed. The allotment will be made on discernable criteria," said Surya while adding that the system will display real-time availability of beds and the type of beds. 

5. Real-time updation of discharges:

The previous system did not have real-time discharging of patients on the portal. This not only led to the creation of an artificial shortage of beds despite being available but also led to double billing on the same beds. This issue will now be fixed in the new system with an integrated approach, giving a seamless experience to the people.

6. Availability of essential medicines such as Remdesivir on the portal:

Apart from displaying the availability of beds, the newly reformed public portal will also mention the details of critical medicines such as Remdesivir and its allotted quota per hospital. Tejasvi Surya said this step has been taken to keep a check on the black marketing of life-saving drugs amid the crisis and also to give clarity to the public about the availability of medicines with the hospitals at any given point.

Bengaluru Bed Racket

The Central Crime Branch of the Bengaluru Police has arrested two officials in connection with the case. According to reports, the police have inquired in three hospitals about the booking of beds. In addition, they also inquired about beds in two hospitals that were shown as blocked in patient's name even after they were discharged. 

South Bengaluru MP Tejasvi Surya had unearthed a scam in the allotment of beds by the BBMP war room officials and accused them of falsely booking beds that are meant for COVID positive patients in exchange for money. The parliamentarian had claimed that over 4,065 beds in Bengaluru were booked illegally while alleging that beds were falsely allotted for 12 hours during which BBMP officials allegedly attempted to 'sell the beds'.

Surya and MLAs Sathish Reddy and Uday Garudachar confronted the BBMP war-room officials regarding the racket following which the bed allotment scam case was later on handed over to the Central Crime Branch (CCB) for investigation. BJP leaders accused the BBMP war-room officials of allotting beds, meant for COVID positive patients, to asymptomatic patients and charging Rs 40,000 for blocking a bed.