Bhubaneswar, Feb. 8 -- Once again the issue of poor patients being diverted from SCB Medical College and Hospital to various nursing homes and private hospitals has come to the fore after the arrest of five middlemen. The middlemen, who mostly worked as ambulance drivers, were arrested by Mangalabag Police on Thursday.

The incident comes in the wake of the recent incident in which a doctor at SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack was accused of trying to send a patient at the trauma department to a private nursing home in the city.

On the arrest of middlemen, ACP Amitabh Mohapatra informed, "We had deployed our staff in plain clothes at the casualty wing of the SCB. We have arrested five brokers and seized some outdoor tickets and...