Pandemic profiteering adds to stress of COVID-19 patients
Private hospitals demand huge sums upfront for admission; ambulances make a killing and so do oxygen cylinder providers; pulse oximeters cost a bomb
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People waiting in a long queue to get Remdesivir at Kilpauk Medical College Hospital in Chennai. (Photo| Ashwin Prasath, EPS) By Express News Service
It is not just that the totally inept national healthcare management has made the second wave of Covid-19 more lethal than it ought to have been. It’s that pandemic profiteering by vultures in the system has amplified patient distress and even led to loss of lives. From oximeters to oxygen to ambulances to hospital beds and life saving medicines, the prices of all of them have jumped manifold. Even in states that imposed a price cap on those services, there is hardly any regulatory system to curb fleecing.