39% Indians paid bribe for Covid treatment at hospital during 2nd wave, survey finds

Of those who paid bribe, 32 per cent paid it for 'getting an admission/bed/ventilator/medicines either for self or someone'.

Patients at a Covid treatment facility in India (Representational image) | Photo: Praveen Jain | ThePrint

New Delhi: Two in five Indians who got treatment for Covid-19 at a hospital during the second wave had to pay a bribe, a new survey by community platform LocalCircles has found.

The survey, released on the occasion of the International Anti-Corruption Day Thursday, also revealed that of those who paid the bribe, 82 per cent said they had to do it to get an admission or bed or ventilator or medicines at a hospital.

The survey received over 16,000 responses from citizens spread across 317 districts of India. Sixty-eight per cent of the respondents were men, while 32 per cent were women. Of the total participants, 42 percent were from tier 1 towns, 32 per cent from tier 2 towns and 26 per cent were from tier 3 & 4 towns and rural locations.

When asked “If you or a family member paid a bribe at a hospital during the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, what was it for?”, out of the 8,970 responses, 61 per cent of citizens said they “did not pay a bribe for COVID-related treatment at a hospital”.

39% had to pay bribe for Covid treatment at hospital

However, the study noted that of those respondents who got Covid-related treatment at a hospital, 39 per cent admitted to paying a bribe. Of them, 32 per cent paid it for “getting an admission/bed/ventilator/medicines either for self or someone”, 4 per cent paid a bribe for “getting information about something or visiting someone in the ICU room”, and 3 per cent paid it for “reducing bill value or timely insurance processing.”

Further examining the “subset” that paid a bribe at a hospital for treatment during the second wave, the survey found that 82 per cent paid it to get admission or bed or ventilator or medicines, 9 per cent paid it to reduce bill amount, while another 9 per cent did so to get information or visit someone in ICU.

The study also revealed that of those who paid a bribe for treatment at a hospital at that time, out of 7,249 responses, 27 per cent said they paid it to the hospital administration staff, another 27 per cent said they paid it to other hospital staff, and 28 per cent said they paid it to the ward boys. Nine per cent said they paid it to a “facilitator”, such as a local politician or leader, government employee, middlemen, while another 9 per cent paid it to a “pharmacy or a chemist”.

The survey also mentioned the platform’s earlier findings on black marketing during the second Covid-19 wave, which found that 13% of citizens were overcharged for a RT-PCR test, while 19% of those who purchased Covid-related medicines such as tocilizumab, remdesivir, fabiflu, etc. were charged more than MRP.