DSI to probe Vajira Hospital graft claims
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The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) will look into further corruption allegations filed by Vajira Hospital staff over the expensive purchase of equipment allegedly three times higher than market prices, director-general Tharit Phengdit said yest
Corruption had forced a large number of doctors to resign from the city-run hospital, including the only four x-ray experts left, who will all quit next month, according to Dr Waikoon Sathapanawat, a surgeon who has lodged a new complaint.
A new operating room that cost more than Bt100 million had not been in use for many years because of substandard equipment installed in the room. This was also a result of graft, the doctor alleged.
The new allegations have been lodged against leaders of Vajira Hospital, Faculty of Medicine Vajira Hospital and the newly established University of Bangkok Metropolis, run by Bangkok Metropolitan Administration.
Tharit said the DSI recently recommended to the National Anti-Corruption Commission that it file an indictment against unidentified leaders for the 2004 purchase of three laundry machines worth Bt43 million. The purchase had resulted in a loss of more than Bt20 million to the state, he said.
BMA spokesman Wasan Meewong said the BMA had been cooperating with the DSI over the matters. He said the corruption had not occurred during the present term of incumbent Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra.
In a separate case involving the Office of the Welfare Promotion Commission for Teachers and Educational Personnel (OTEP), the DSI found that it had sold school equipment and textbooks to Channel 3 through a mediation assisted by a woman, which was not needed.
The DSI found that OTEP director Santipharb Intharaphat and mediator Phornthip were brother and sister, and Phornthip allegedly bagged Bt1.2 million unlawfully as a “mediation cost”, from a Bt3.69-million deal made with Channel 3.
The DSI was also investigating why Santipharb sold OTEP-owned land in an unspecified province at different prices in two sales when the properties were located in the same block.
