Corporate hospitals making ‘unethical, criminal’ profits, alleges doctors’ association

Questioning the claims of corporate hospitals that imported stents are better, a group of doctors on Sunday alleged these hospitals have formed a “grand alliance” to subvert the Centre’s recent decision to cap prices of lifesaving stents.

The Alliance of Doctors for Ethical Healthcare (ADEH) said the decision by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) to cap the prices of lifesaving stents would hit the profits of these hospitals, which were involved in absolutely “unethical and criminal” practices.

ADEH urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ensure that the decision was implemented without any obstacles by such people and compliance was ensured, saying if foreign companies were refusing to supply the stents to Indian hospitals, then there was a need to give full support to Indian companies to increase their production.

“ADEH questions the claims of the corporate hospitals that the imported stents were in anyway better than the ones manufactured in India. Corporate hospitals seem to have formed a grand alliance to subvert the revolutionary decision of the NPPA to cap the prices of life saving stents as it will hit their profits which were absolutely unethical and criminal and are doing medical corruption,” G S Grewal and Arun Mitra of the core committee of the ADEH said.

The government recently had slashed prices of stents by up to 85 per cent by capping them at ~7,260 for bare metal ones and ~29,600 for the drug-eluting variety.