Even as the investigation into the fake vaccination drive in the city deepens, mid-day has found out that the Charkop-based Shivam Hospital was also allegedly involved in fleecing patients by giving them remdesivir injections at five times its actual price and inflated hospital bills. Family members of some of the patients said that the hospital never mentioned the cost break-ups in the bills.

Owner of Shivam Chemist located on the hospital premises revealed that the authorities would purchase the injections and medicines from him and delay payments for the same saying that those were included in the patients’ mediclaim policies and he would get it only after the amounts were cleared. As a result, Ratnakar Shetty, who had taken the shop on rent in March, shut it down in May, as his payments totaling Rs 1.5 crore were not cleared by the hospital. However, he managed to get the Rs 1.5 crore, which he had paid as deposit, from the owner.