One of the most disheartening developments since the pandemic began has been the existence of criminals who have found it fit to capitalize on the situation, taking advantage of people’s vulnerabilities and weaknesses and, in the process, putting their lives at risk.
This has come in the form of factories which have sprung up across the country, making and selling fake hand sanitizers and other items, which do little to protect the user from the coronavirus.
But the most unacceptable of all is the existence of unlicensed hospitals and health care facilities which have taken a step further on their journey of cruelty and greed, taking money from the government for services provided and selling fake Covid-19 certificates.
We saw this most prominently with the case of Regent Hospital and its criminally inclined chairman, Shahed, exposing a state-of-affairs that was corrupt to the core.
With this knowledge, the authorities have a duty to ensure that such a situation is not allowed to repeat, and anyone found engaging in such criminal activities is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
While we appreciate the Health Ministry’s initiative in this regard, whereby they have set up a taskforce with the sole purpose of conducting drives against unlicensed health care facilities and other irregularities, it seems that, once again, bureaucratic red tape is preventing them from doing their job properly.
There currently exists no updated list of licensed hospitals -- thanks to a lengthy and inefficient licensing process -- which would allow the taskforce to correctly differentiate between legitimate institutions from those which are not.
Can we honestly afford to allow such incompetence to rule our health sector when the entire world has been shut down because of a pandemic? How many fake certificates are being sold each day as a result of such avoidable inefficiencies in the licensing process?
Authorities within the health sector must shape up and do their job with the utmost seriousness and commitment. It is only by holding our health care sector to the highest of standards that we stand a chance of surviving this pandemic.
