Hospital Nacional Guillermo Almenara Irigoyen

History

2021: Hospital staff arrested for selling beds for seriously ill coronavirus for $21,000.

At the end of July 2021, Peruvian police reported that they had eliminated a criminal group that charged $21,000 for a bed from seriously ill patients with COVID-19 in a state hospital. This further aggravated the situation with medical care in Peru, which was seriously affected by the pandemic. As of mid-2021, Peru tops the list of countries with the most coronavirus deaths per 1,000,000 people.

According to prosecutor Reynaldo Abia, the authorities arrested nine people during the morning raid, including administrators of the Hospital Nacional Guillermo Almenara Irigoyen. The scam was uncovered after the police received a complaint from the brother of a patient with COVID-19, from whom they demanded 82000 salts ($20 783) for hospitalization in the intensive care unit and treatment.

Hospital Nacional Guillermo Almenara Irigoyen

Peruvian Health Minister Oscar Ugarte told reporters that such fraud requires an immediate response. "It's reprehensible," he said. "We cannot trade human lives."

Corruption scandals related to the pandemic are not the first to shake the highest echelons of power in Peru. Outrage over rumors that some high-ranking officials were given access to preferential vaccination prompted Peru's health and foreign ministers to resign in early 2021.

During the peak of the pandemic, many patients in Peru paid large sums of money to private clinics, since the state system could not cope with the crisis. The number of available intensive care beds, which in March 2020 was only hundreds, by mid-2021 increased to almost 3,000 across the country, but these beds are still in high demand, which contributes to the development of corruption.Peru arrests state hospital workers for charging COVID-19 patients $21,000 per bed

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