Peruvian police announced on Wednesday that they had dismantled a circuit that was accused of charging around 18.000 euros per bed in the intensive care unit of a public hospital for seriously ill patients with COVID-19, further aggravating the health care situation in one of the world's worst affected countries by the new coronavirus pandemic.
Nine people were arrested in police raids yesterday morning, including public hospital administrators Guillermo Almenara Irigoyen, according to Corruption Prosecutor Reynaldo Avia. The fraud was discovered when a patient's brother with her COVID-19 He complained to the police that they were asking for 82.000 soles (17.626 euros) to find a bed in an intensive care unit (ICU), Mr. Avia explained.
The Minister of Health of the transitional government of Peru, Oscar Ugarte, stressed that there will be immediate consequences for this case. "It simply came to our notice then. "It is not possible to bargain for human lives," he said.
Pandemic-linked corruption scandals have already swept Peru. The outrage over the vaccination scandal of top politicians and government officials has led to the resignations of the Minister of Health and the Minister of Foreign Affairs this year.
The hospital involved in the new scandal is owned by EsSalud, Peru's national social security system is required to provide free care. For the admission to its ICU, which has a capacity of 80 beds, the waiting list is long. At the height of the pandemic, patients and their relatives were forced to pay large sums for treatment in private clinics, as the public health system was unable to manage the crisis.
ICU beds have since grown to almost 3.000 nationwide, from a few hundred in March 2020, but demand remains huge in the Andean state. To date, Peru has mourned more than 195.000 deaths COVID-19 out of a total of around 2,1 million SARS-CoV-2 cases. The Latin American country has the highest proportion of deaths in the world.
Source: KYPE