Didn’t hear of something like this, most likely a local scandal somewhere. Not a common practice. However, some officially paid options remain, like the most potent forms of anesthesia, or a private room in some instances.

There are some forms of widespread corruption. Many of the head physicians are bribed by pharmacy companies so that doctors prescribe unnecessarily expensive (albeit still relevant) medication, racking the patient’s bills on that. In some instances, bribing the right people allows you to bypass the queues as an urgent patient without being one.

As per maternity hospitals, I’ve heard of a few…questionable practices, still. The “husband stitch”, for example, is still a thing in some regional hospitals, and it’s not good for women’s health and wellbeing.