NEW DELHI:
With the country’s drug pricing watchdog finding private hospitals in Delhi and NCR making up to 1700 per cent profit on drugs and diagnostics, the economic wing of the RSS on Thursday sought action against the fleecing hospitals for overcharging and exploitation of patients.
The Swadeshi Jagaran Manch (SJM), which had taken on the government over several issues including FDI, has asked the government to put a cap on the prices on medical devices, procedures, diagnostic services and has also sought proceedings against culpable hospitals by the Competition Commission of India (CCI).
Pointing out that the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority’s (NPPA) analyses of four hospital bills provide clear evidence of exploitation of the patients by the private hospitals, the outfit’s All India Co-Convener Ashwani Mahajan said: “The SJM demands an urgent intervention of the government to put an end to this shameless profiteering at the cost of peoples’ lives.”
The NPPA analyses found that the hospitals are arm-twisting both consumers and manufacturers in order to charge exorbitant prices and that non-scheduled drugs and diagnostic services constituted the major components of bills charged to patients in these hospitals.
“The analyses clearly show that it is not the manufacturers but the corporate private hospitals that are benefiting due to the lack of regulation on prices. Since the majority of the population goes to the private sector, there is a duty of both the central and state governments to take measures to ensure access to healthcare, a constitutional obligation,” he said.
He said it was important to revamp the price control mechanism to ensure that there is no room for neutralising the effect of price control through various loopholes.
The SJM wanted the government to instruct NPPA to fix the prices of medical devices, which are already, notified as drugs under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act and Rules. The Drug Price Control Orders 2013 should be revamped to remove any loopholes bypass the price control mechanism and to introduce a cost-based price fixation, it said.
