Kochi: Buoyed by the success of their campaign to reduce the price of coronary stents, health activists are now aiming to force the government to include more such devices and procedures on the list including intraocular lenses and bypass surgery. “There exists exploitation across devices and procedures in private hospitals, and the state and Union governments have the responsibility to intervene and reduce their cost to make them affordable to middle and lower middle class and poor people, especially those that are accessible only in tertiary care hospitals. There have to be binding standard treatment protocols in the case of essential and critical healthcare services, and there should be a cap on such healthcare charges,” said K. M. Gopakumar, a Delhi-based medico-legal activist.
It is estimated that not only for intraocular lenses but knee and hip replacement and heart valves, high prices are being charged by various private hospitals across the country. “Caesarian section and operation for appendicitis and other internal organs are differently charged by different hospitals and hence a national regulator has to be appointed to cap these healthcare procedure costs. The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) which intervened in the case of pricing of stents can enforce prices in the case of only devices and not procedures,” said Mr Gopakumar.
A normal intraocular lens currently costs from Rs 750 to Rs 4,000 while up to Rs 62,000 is charged for imported varieties. “No one has the facility to check once they are implanted inside the body. So none has a clue about the kind of exploitation happening in the case of such procedures,” said a medical professional from Kochi who preferred not to be named.
