ISLAMABAD-Private hospitals of Islamabad are earning a fortune through the treatment of patients suffering from coronavirus. 
A well-known private hospital of Islamabad has charged a patient a total bill of Rs2.9 million for only 20 days. The worrisome heir of the patient shared this tragic story of his father with this correspondent in a hope that in future, other patients could be saved from the horrific treatment which they have gone through. 
Wishing to stay anonymous, the patient’s family told The Nation that the specific hospital tried its best to fetch most out of their pockets while their patient was being treated. 
According to the story narrated by the family of that patient, the hospital charged Rs55,000 per day for keeping the patient on ventilator. Apart from this, COVID-19 patients were to pay additional Rs35,000 every day under the light of the COVID-19 package introduced by the hospital, told the family.  The family further revealed that while charging so much money and asking for payments in advance every day, the doctors would not spare a minute to talk about the patient and his condition with the family. 
The patient’s son told that after spending 20 days in hospital and 10 to 12 days in home before getting his father admitted, the results of COVID-19 were still coming positive. It was told that the test was carried out thrice but the result stood the same.  When asked what was the doctor’s reply to the COVID-19 results, the patient’s son replied that the doctors consoled them by saying that the tests maybe falsely positive and another one was to be done in order to get accurate results. The patient’s family told that the hospital staff said that this was normal and there was nothing to worry about as the results of the tests were mostly falsely positive. The doctors told this to the family when they requested them to take the sample test to some other lab to check the results. 
“Why were the doctors keeping my father on a ventilator when they were not even sure about the COVID-19 result?” questioned the person. 
At last, when the patient was finally recovering, the family decided to get another test. But, unfortunately the result came out positive again and the doctors insisted the family to keep the patient admitted. 
After this, the family of the patient stated that they got very frustrated over the doctors and got their patient discharged immediately as he seemed to be recovering from the symptoms. The patient took another test right after leaving the hospital from another lab and the result came out negative. 
Something similar is heard from many residents of the capital. These few private hospitals are keeping patients admitted deliberately to earn huge money. 
Since coronavirus hit Pakistan and entered the capital, the government is struggling to fulfil the medical requirements and facilities such as ventilators.
Now the government has managed to supply additional ventilators, which are also being developed in the local markets with the help of the ministry of science and technology. 
These oxygenated ventilators are difficult to operate and so require intensive care staff to carry out its workings. Because of high demand of ventilators in almost all parts of world, this medical facility has gone short in most of the hospitals of the capital. 
Apart from this, many cases have come forward in which the hospitals lost patients owing to their inability to operate oxygenated ventilators. 
However, where most of the hospitals have failed to use these ventilators, these few private hospitals of the capital have managed to hire intensive care unit to operate these ventilators and so, are the only option left for the sensitive COVID-19 patients. 
Unfortunately, it seems like these few private hospitals have managed to create a monopoly among the others and are earning a fortune in this hard time where they should actually be compromising for the sake of humanity.A