The Wuhan coronavirus pandemic has presented a golden opportunity for a section of people to resort to profiteering. According to a report by Bhaskar, in Bhanu hospital of Rajasthan’s capital city Jaipur, a shocking profiteering was unearthed as a Covid patient was billed a whopping Rs 1.8 lakh in just six days. Due to the non-payment of dues by the patient’s family, the patient’s scooty was confiscated by the hospital authorities.
Hemant Rawat’s father – Mohan Singh who was admitted to Bhanu hospital in Jaipur on May 7 got a shock of his life when his father was discharged from the hospital on May 12 as he received a bill of Rs. 1.8 lakh. Upon being admitted, the doctor said that Singh’s condition was critical and had to be shifted to ICU while arrangements for oxygen was also to be made. The charges for ICU were fixed at Rs 6,000/day with doctor’s fee extra at Rs 1,000/day. The charges for medicine and tests were to billed over and above.
After six days, the hospital operator asked Rawat to shift his father to another hospital and to ensure the patient’s discharge the operator asked Rawat to pay the outstanding amount of Rs 65,000. When asked for a bill, the operator said that he will give the bill at a later stage. However, when Rawat said that he will pay the remaining amount later, his scooty was confiscated by the hospital operator.
According to Rawat, the final bill was grossly inflated as the hospital showed Rs 1.26 lakh as the cost of medicines with the bill not even mentioning the quantity or the expiry date of the medicines. In fact, an additional cost of Rs 3,000 was added as procedural cost.
Recently, an appalling development had come to light from Congress-ruled Rajasthan, where life-support ventilators belonging to the PM Cares Fund pool were being leased out by government hospitals to private institutes for exorbitant rates – the burden of which unsuspecting patients are having to incur.
According to a report by the Republic World, Bharatpur’s Rai Bahadur hospital has leased 20 of its ventilators provided by PM-CARES Fund to Jindal private hospital, citing ‘non-usage’ of the equipment. The development has exposed the Ashok Gehlot-led government of Rajasthan, as it allows the leasing of ventilators belonging to the central pool to private hospitals in the state.
Aggrieved kin, quoted by the Republic World, said, “40 ventilators were provided by the PM-CARES fund. I have been asking hospital administration for past 2 months, where have the ventilators been installed? But they have no answers. Jindal hospital which has always been in controversy, has been given 10 ventilators by hospital administration. Collector says that the ventilators were faulty, but they were not. Jindal hospital has been charging Rs 35,000-40,000 for these ventilators.”
It is unfortunate to see that some people see an opportunity in such unprecedented times and stoop to exploit the poor and unsuspecting people.