Graphic: For profit hospital involvement in COVID-19 treatment
For this week’s infographic, we visualise what percentage of COVID-19 ICU patients are being cared for by Europe’s largest for profit hospital operators.
As COVID-19 surges in Europe to a level far higher than China’s (reported) cases and fatalities, it’s worth looking at how far for profits have been used to help weather the storm.
This can be through taking on elective activity from public hospitals to help them free up beds for the increasing number of COVID-19 cases, or by taking a front-line position and caring for infected patients themselves in cooperation with public authorities.
The infographic above shows the extent to which private hospital COVID-19 inpatient admissions are happening in Paris, Spain, north Italy, Germany, UK, Poland, Portugal and Romania. Investigation by HBI has shown that basically no ICU or inpatients are being cared for in private hospitals in the latter four. UK private hospitals have little ICU capacity to offer while the epidemic is at an earlier stage in the other three.
We would welcome your thoughts on this story. Email your views to Cameron Murray or call 0207 183 3779.
