PROFITEERS PUT FURTHER SQUEEZE ON SUFFERING INDIAN FAMILIES

▶ Relatives and patients are conned or overcharged for oxygen, drugs and essential services

Delhi resident Geeta Arora struck a deal with two men for an oxygen cylinder that she wanted for her friend’s father, a Covid-19 patient who was gasping for breath after failing to be admitted to a hospital.

Ms Arora paid the men 10,000 rupees ($135) in cash and drove quickly to her friend’s home at night to deliver the life-saving gas, only to discover that she had been swindled and the “oxygen cylinder” was a fire extinguisher.

Her friend’s father died the next day, leaving Ms Arora distraught at the loss and shocked at being cheated at time when the pandemic forced people to rely on the illegal market for medicine and medical oxygen to save loved ones.

She complained to the police, who said they arrested the men on charges of cheating and endangering public safety and seized five more extinguishers that the men planned to sell.

The men had no criminal records but were taking advantage of India’s coronavirus crisis, police officer Dharambir Singh told The National.

India has been in the grip of a second wave of the pandemic since March, with the daily case number increases setting world records and overwhelming India’s health system.

More than 400,000 new Covid-19 cases were reported on Saturday, the highest single day rise that also took the country’s total to nearly 20 million, with more than three million active cases that require constant medical care at home or in hospitals.

Out of more than 215,000 Covid-19 deaths in India, nearly 50,000 were recorded last month.

The situation has left millions of families at the mercy of scammers, hoarders and even some unscrupulous doctors, pharmacists and nurses seeking to profit from tragedy.

Victims reported paying 10 to 50 times the retail cost for medicine, medical oxygen, Covid-19 tests, ambulances and even cremations. Over the past three weeks, police across India reported hundreds of arrests in connection with illegal sales and profiteering from medical supplies.

Several regional courts ordered local governments to act against the black market in medicine and oxygen and crack down on profiteering and hoarding.

Pratik Sen, from Ghaziabad city near Delhi, said he searched for two days to find an oxygen cylinder for his elder brother, whose blood oxygen levels were dipping by the hour after he contracted the coronavirus.

Mr Sen found an agent outside a hospital who agreed to sell him an empty cylinder for $600.

“He charged almost four times more but I had no other option. It was about life and death,” Mr Sen told The National.

“It took me another day to arrange the gas.”

Mr Sen paid 2,000 rupees to have the cylinder filled – about five times the normal cost – but considered himself fortunate.

Many relatives post pleas for oxygen and medicine on social media, which criminals monitor with the aim of exploiting them.

Police in New Delhi arrested a neurologist last Wednesday and recovered 70 vials of remdesivir, a sought-after antiviral drug that is selling for 10 to 50 times its retail price in India, although its effectiveness in treating the virus is still debated internationally.

Police said the doctor used his connections and prescriptions to procure the drug from pharmacies and sold it to about 150 families through his agents, who searched for buyers on social media and offered the drug for $540 a vial, a markup of more than $500.

The overcharging continues even after death, with hearses and funeral services being offered at inflated prices.

Media reports quoted families saying they were charged between 5,000 and 10,000 rupees for a distance of five kilometres and that officials at crematoriums and graveyards demanded more for services.

Several states set fixed rates for ambulances and hearses carrying the bodies of Covid-19 victims to crematoriums and graveyards, and threatened people who breached the rules with jail terms.

“The public can complain on the Delhi Police Covid-19 helpline about malpractices such as overcharging by ambulances; fake Covid-19 medicine; black marketing/hoarding of medicine, oxygen cylinders/ concentrators or other medical equipment; harassment at cremation ground etc,” a Delhi police officer tweeted on Saturday.

Reports from India say that the funeral industry is playing fast and loose with the prices it charges the bereaved