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Covid India: Rajkot hospital staff captured on video selling admission

Mumbai - Viral video shows employees allegedly demanding Rs 9,000.

A shocking video recording of a dubious deal between employees of the Rajkot civil hospital and relatives of a Covid-19 patient, seeking admission in the overcrowded facility has gone viral.

Even as hundreds of patients and their relatives waited outside the hospital for hours in blistering heat seeking admission, two employees – identified as Jagdish Solanki, 20, and Hitesh Mahida, 18, by the police – are heard negotiating a price for out-of-turn admission.

“I won’t settle for anything less than Rs9,000,” one of them is heard telling the patient’s relative.

“Even I have to pay money to those inside the hospital. You will get the bed within 30 minutes.” The deal is finalised inside the car and the money (finally reduced to Rs8,000) is handed over.

Fortunately, the police were clued into the case and took prompt action. But there are hundreds of such incidents happening at public hospitals, not just in Rajkot and other cities in Gujarat, but many other places across India.