Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Hospital has a price tag for everything!

Warangal: Everything in life has a price tag. Nothing comes free so as the way the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Hospital (MGMH), the lifeline of Covid-19 patients in north Telangana, functions. The MGMH staff despite being hailed as the frontline warriors and avatars of compassion appears to be in the centre of controversy facing allegations of fleecing the patients.

This is not the first time that MGMH is courting infamy as it was like any other State-run hospitals where bribes to provide facilities thrive. Even though such a phenomenon is not new, what hurts is the situation in which people were in with the coronavirus pandemic threatening to wipe their lives. The business begins as soon as an ambulance carrying coronavirus positive lands in the MGMH. The stretcher that takes the patient into the Covid-19 ward is the beginning of a bribe with many more to follow. It's alleged that the stretcher boys slap a 'fee' of Rs 2,000 leastwise. Into the ward, the patient needs to cough out a few more thousands to get a bed. This apart, a laundered bedsheet has its cost. It's no exaggeration to say that with that cost people can buy two to three bedsheets.

To get rid of trash around your bed, the patient needs a few more bucks. The staff is allegedly charging the patient Rs 500 for mounting up a saline bottle. The cost of allotting a bed with oxygen facility and ventilator depends upon the situation. "The robbery doesn't stop even in case of death. The relatives get the body only after paying around Rs 5,000. Even though the administration claims that it had made arrangements for cremation of the Covid-19 victims, the loot continues.

In all including ambulance, cremation etc, the relatives have to cough anywhere Rs 30,000," Sunkari Prashanth, the founder president of Jwala, an NGO working for the eradication of corruption, told The Hans India. The talk around private hospitals exploiting the coronavirus patients may be true, but the state of affairs at the MGMH is also no different. Someway or other way patients were at the receiving end, Prashanth said. Unless you grease someone's palms, nothing is going to happen in the MGMH. This needs to be changed. The authorities need to look into the issue, said Praja Vedika State Convener Tirunahari Seshu.