Hyderabad: Will the new Central budget look into healthcare costs which have increased by 30 to 40 per cent as the devices used for treating diseases are imported from abroad? This is the question being raised in medical circles as the treatment for heart diseases, gastro-intestinal diseases, liver and transplants require devices that are imported from abroad. The medical device market is tipped to be worth Rs 30,000 crore, and is bound to increase due to the rising healthcare costs.
The commonly used devices are stents, pace makers, valves for heart surgeries, orthopedic surgery plates, screws and fixation devices. Gastroin-testinal surgeries require staplers, meshes, artificial blood vessels and numerous drugs required with these devices.
While 80 per cent of the medical devices are imported from abroad it is the patient who is paying the high cost.
Despite manufacturers in India wanting to produce the devices they are facing hostile taxation due to which it is becoming difficult. In the present scenario, the import duty on medical devices and instruments is about 10 per cent and many others are even duty free.
Dr K. Ravindranath, chairman and managing director, Global Hospitals Group says, “The problem is that the government has forced hospitals to source from abroad. They have not allowed manufacturing of these products in India. Whatever is being produced does not have proper quality checks and hence there are disasters which doctors can’t afford. Not all manufacturers are bad. There are some good ones and we require a proper system in place to get more players in the industry.”
All the devices can be comfortably manufactured in India. There is huge expertise in the field of metallurgy and there are extensive technical facilities but it is for the government to give the boost. Despite that it is found that General Electric has set up its manufacturing unit in China and imports the devices into India.
A group of senior doctors and technology companies have given representations to health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan hoping for policy changes.
A senior officer in a technology company explained, “Since the last seven years we have been giving representations but to no avail. The Indian market has lost heavily to countries like China, Brazil and Malaysia where there are huge units for manufacturing medical devices.”
Dr G.S.K. Velu of Trivitron Healthcare says, “There is a need to have a separate department for devices as it requires a group of experts who will put in their best. The Indian healthcare market is device oriented and every specialty is dependent on instruments.” With our requirement on the higher side the cost of treatment increases tremendously.”
