KOHAT, Feb 3: A monitoring team of the district council after unearthing an embezzlement of Rs1.2 million worth of medicines and other items in the store of the Liaquat Memorial Hospital has given two months to the accused staff to refund the amount in cash or in the shape of items, Dawn reliably learnt on Sunday.

Meanwhile, opposition members, demanding registration of a criminal case against the officials involved in the embezzlement, had accused the monitoring team of siding with the corrupt, providing them unlawful protection and denying the public justice by delaying action against known criminals, it has been further learnt.

The issue came to the notice of the district council when the team paid a routine visit to the hospital and found the store record incomplete and on inquiry learnt that the new storekeeper had refused handing and taking over on the pretext that medicines and other items worth Rs1.2 million were missing.

The council members wanted to bring the irregularity into the notice of the army monitoring team but on the intervention of an influential personality the accused were asked to refund the items within two months or face action.

Dr Matiullah Shah, Nazim from urban V, and Tariq Khan, Nazim from urban VI, while talking to Dawn in the LMH on Sunday, said that as a matter of principle criminal procedure was required to be followed in the said case so that the criminals were awarded severe punishment.

He regretted that the poor patients were denied free medical help in the hospital citing financial problems but on the other hand medicines worth such an huge amount had been sold by the corrupt officials who belonged to a sacred profession.

He also revealed that during the visit of the team the head nurse was caught red handed while taking a patient from the delivery room to a private clinic of a lady doctor for ultrasound but she was again spared for unknown reasons. The administration of the hospital also refused to take any action against her saying that she was very well connected and had been serving in Kohat on the same post for the last 16 years. She had never been transferred during her 16 years of her service, the officials told the team members.

The Nazim told Dawn that he found the staff of the surgical ward missing on Sunday. Both the doctors who should have been on duty in the ward did not turn up for rounds till 2.30pm and the serious patients were being taken care of by a compounder.