Some dishonest staff of Lalmonirhat Sadar Hospital misappropriated about Tk 15 lakh that was received from various services to the patients in the fiscal year 2014-15, instead of depositing it to the government treasury.

The money came from the outpatients' user fees, ambulance fares, cabin rent, and fees for X-rays and different pathological tests.

A five-member audit team from the Civil Audit Department, headed by Ala Uddin, conducted an audit of the hospital for the fiscal year 2014-15, and found that Tk 14,99,656 had been misappropriated. The team submitted the audit report to the director general of the Civil Audit Department a week ago, hospital sources said.

Mahbub Alam, office assistant of the hospital, and Saiful Islam Mandol, lab in-charge, were involved in the misappropriation, the audit report said.

The two dominated the other staff of the hospital and misled the higher authorities, hospital staff said. They demanded exemplary punishment to the corrupt duo. 

Mahbub said he had nothing to say about the audit report.

Saiful said the authorities concerned will take steps in this connection.

Dr Ahsan Ali Babu, civil surgeon of Lalmonirhat, said the higher authorities of the health department would take steps against corruption.