Profit over patients: How corporate greed is compromising patient care

By: Dr. Fiaz Maqbool Fazili

I grew up in a medical family. From primary clinics to tertiary hospitals, rural care centers to urban super-specialty institutions, and remote regions to international medical centers—medicine has always been a calling in our household. Over the past 40 years, I have walked nearly every corridor of the healthcare system: first as a frontline responder, then as an on-call surgeon, and later through emergency rooms, operating theatres, pathology labs, radiology units, and eventually into leadership roles overseeing quality and patient safety as a healthcare director.

With 45 years as a registered practitioner and 35 as a super-specialist, I’ve witnessed healthcare’s transformation—from a vocation grounded in empathy to an industry poisoned by profit.

This is not a critique from the sidelines. It is a firsthand account from someone who has dedicated an entire life to patient care. What I see today is heartbreaking: a system once rooted in compassion now reduced to spreadsheets and shareholder interests.

The human cost: Burnout, violence, and disillusionment

Ask any doctor, nurse, technician, or administrative worker, and they’ll tell you the same story: healthcare workers are suffering. We are exhausted—mentally, emotionally, and physically. Long work weeks of 40 to 100 hours are now the norm. Despite the relentless pace, we are undervalued and underpaid. Many of us spend more time clicking boxes on screens than holding a patient’s hand or listening to their fears.

The rise in workplace violence is alarming. Healthcare workers are being harassed, stabbed, and beaten—physically and emotionally. Nurses report panic attacks. Doctors speak of depression. Suicide rates among medical professionals have quietly and steadily increased. Those who entered the profession to serve are now fleeing it in record numbers.

Medicine loses its appeal: Why fewer students are choosing health care

Medicine was once a top career choice—prestigious, respected, and mission-driven. Today, fewer ambitious students are pursuing it, and for good reason. Crushing workloads, corporate exploitation, and systemic burnout have made medicine an increasingly unattractive path.

Patients, too, are disillusioned and increasingly distrustful. Navigating insurance panels, in-network providers, pre-authorizations, and billing disputes feels like wading through a swamp while blindfolded. “Ghost lists”—insurance directories listing unavailable providers—have created chaos and delays.

Accessibility and affordability have become twin monsters. Patients under public schemes like PMJAY or those with gold insurance cards often face repeated denials for crucial tests or life-saving medications. Chemotherapy is frequently postponed due to cost caps. The system that efficiently collects premiums falters when it comes time to provide care.

Meanwhile, cancer, obesity, and chronic diseases are surging, driven by lifestyle degradation, poor food quality, ultra-processed items, and harmful additives—many banned elsewhere. Yet, instead of public health initiatives, we get marketing campaigns from the very industries causing the harm.

At the heart of this crisis lies the corporatization of healthcare. Hospitals are no longer run by physicians but by MBAs. Boardrooms have replaced bedsides. Patients are “clients,” care is a “service,” and health professionals are reduced to “providers.”

The very language of medicine has changed—and so has its soul. Price transparency and trust once anchored every interaction. Today, cut-practice, referral commissions, and broker networks dominate. A surgeon’s skill is less valued than their revenue generation. A hospital’s prestige is now tied to its profit margins.

For patients, this corporate greed means skyrocketing costs and delays. For providers, it means relentless pressure to increase “turnover” and meet performance metrics with little regard for patient well-being.

Public and private insurance schemes, once hailed as tools for equity, now often function as instruments of exclusion. They offer coverage but not care—burdened by fine print, long exclusions, and opaque authorization procedures. A cancer patient may appear “covered,” but in reality, may have to beg, borrow, or die waiting.

Reimbursement processes are equally flawed. Providers drown in paperwork, audits, and delayed payments. Many hospitals avoid treating patients with complex insurance profiles altogether.

The sensitive souls in medicine—those who entered to serve, not to profit—are quietly leaving. Some retire early, others switch to administrative roles, many migrate abroad, and a few tragically take their own lives. The rest stay on, not out of hope, but out of duty, slowly burning out.

The result? Fewer caregivers for more patients, leading to rushed consultations, misdiagnoses, patient dissatisfaction, and rising malpractice rates. Compassion fatigue has become a professional hazard. What once was a sacred calling has lost its sanctity.

Where do we go from here?

We must begin by asking: how did we get here—and how do we return?

1. Reclaim health care from corporate interests.
   This doesn’t mean eliminating private players, but redefining their roles. Profit should not dictate policy. Patient welfare must come first. Regulators must enforce ethical standards in pricing, referrals, and pharma partnerships.

2. Redesign insurance systems to prioritize care.
   Denial of care must end. Public schemes must be audited independently to ensure that “coverage” translates into actual care. Timely approval for tests, medications, and procedures should be mandatory.

3. Support our healthcare workers.
   Fair pay, humane work hours, mental health support, and safety from workplace violence are non-negotiable. Reduce the burden of documentation. Let technology assist, not replace, human care.

4. Invest in public health education.
   From nutrition to preventive screenings, empower people to manage their health. The government must regulate the ultra-processed food industry and ban harmful additives—meaningfully and effectively.

5. Revive empathy in medicine.
   Health care is not a business. It is a sacred trust. Healing requires listening, understanding, and presence. We must return to a time when a doctor’s presence was comfort enough, and a patient’s smile was reward enough.

 A moral reckoning

Health care is in the midst of a moral crisis. This will not be resolved through technologies or bigger hospitals. It will require courage—courage to speak, to reform, and to heal not just the body, but the very soul of our profession.

This is my testimony—not just as a doctor, but as a witness to all we have lost. My hope is that it reignites the empathy we’ve buried beneath policies, profits, and procedures. Only then can we begin the long, painful, but necessary journey back to healing—ourselves and our patients.

—Dr. Fiaz Maqbool Fazili, clinical auditor, practicing surgeon, and expert on healthcare quality and patient safety. He advocates for patient and family rights and can be reached at [email protected]