Anirud
The COVID-19 pandemic beyond placing unprecedented demands on our healthcare services has also triggered several challenges domestically. TV visuals showing family members/relatives struggling to arrange oxygen cylinders and lifesaving medicines for their near and dear ones infected with the dreaded virus is rather traumatic.
True, we are living through an extraordinary crisis. However as the saying goes that every cloud has a silver lining, it is laudable there are scores of faceless volunteers seemingly supplementing the untiring efforts of tens of thousands of medical professionals and their support staff.
A humanitarian emergency like the one we are facing now calls for empathy, but it is disconcerting that many unscrupulous elements and mafia groups seem to be leaving no stone unturned to cash in on during such critical times. Looting by some private labs and overcharging for RT-PCR tests, which are frequently in news, is just a tip of the ice berg. Theoretically, black marketing evidently emerges against the backdrop of limited supplies. That many crooks apparently have created an artificial scarcity of all sorts be it antivirals, medical oxygen or even ambulance services is a cause for serious concern. Ambulances are meant to facilitate the transport of patients to hospitals. It is hard to believe that some of them have been allegedly overcharging immensely. Be it to transport COVID patients or human remains even for short distances many of them without a reason or rhyme have literally robbed several hapless citizens of their hard earned money. Thanks to timely police action across our cities. During the last three weeks, hundreds of fraudsters have been booked for various offences.
Huge seizures of Remdesivir – an injectable anti-viral drug – in Delhi shows how racketeers had been black marketing the drug with impunity. Amidst reports of shortages and black marketing of Remdesivir, no sooner than the Central Government intervened to make it more affordable to patients, seven Indian Pharma companies possessing licences to manufacture the drug here have “voluntarily lowered” their prices per 100mg/vial, in the range of 25-70 per cent. The arrest of a 5-member interstate gang by the Delhi Police and seizure of 2 cars and lots of Remdesivir injections recently revealed that the gang had confessed selling more than 100 vials during the last three weeks at Rs 50000/- an injection.
In these gasping times, many anxious people looking out for medical oxygen cylinders and concentrators over the Internet are reportedly falling into traps laid by cyber fraudsters.. On 2 May, a Bengaluru businessman, trying to buy an oxygen concentrator online, after being convinced, transferred the money in multiple transactions to a bank account provided by the “company”. In the process, he allegedly lost around Rs 12 lakh and neither the oxygen concentrator arrived nor he could succeed in contacting the online seller.
Last April, while investigating into complaints of fake COVID reports, police in Delhi apprehended a five-membered gang including a Doctor for providing COVID test reports on the forged letter head of a diagnostic lab where they worked. The incident came to light after a man who gave home sample was declared COVID positive by the lab. As he did not have any symptoms of the virus, he got himself retested at another lab which confirmed that he never had COVID. On approaching the first lab which had declared he was positive, to his surprise he found that his report was not in its records. Police probe found that 2 persons coordinated with two lab boys for collection of home samples which was handed over to the doctor who worked in the lab for analysis. The doctor in turn simply provided random reports on the forged letter head of the lab and never made entries of the same in the prescribed manner.
Studies have shown that frauds tend to occur in organisations where there are no basic control mechanisms in place. Similarly in pandemic situations, where uncertainty looms large, drivers of fraud like opportunity, motivation etc., occur simultaneously and it may draw some people into committing it. An analysis of those apprehended for various malpractices shows that most of them are young with no previous crime record. They are welders, office boys, taxi drivers etc. Reportedly some have confessed that they used the opportunity during the current crisis to earn quick money which led to cheating. In so far as black marketing of life saving injections like Remdesivir is concerned, unscrupulous staff of some hospitals have been found to be involved.
Looking beyond price capping mechanisms, those in the higher echelons of power ought to initiate a slew of measures including regular monitoring and control of systems.
In effectively dealing with pandemic vultures, at the macro level, there is an imperative need to swiftly bring them to book, including first time offenders.
As certainty of punishment evidently serves as a deterrent, there can be no room for complacency.
At an individual level, it is worth considering what Mahatma Gandhi once said, “There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts”.
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