With spurt in cases of overcharging arbitrarily fixed at 100 to 200% on medical grade gloves in hospitals, Heart Care Foundation of India (HCFI) has urged the Union health ministry to bring it under National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) so that the MRP on medical consumables can be rationalized.
In order to accrue maximum profit out of consumables in the form of MRP, it is observed that the price is dictated most often by manufacturers in collusion with hospitals. The exorbitant charges on gloves lead to an increase in medical bills of the patients.
As of now there are no guidelines on how many gloves are to be used for a patient every day.
At the core of the problem is not the number of gloves used, but the profiteering involved. Therefore gloves should be included in NLEM and their price should be capped, said Dr KK Aggarwal, president of HCFI.
The Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS) on December 14, 2017 de-panelled Mata Chanan Devi Hospital, Janak Puri, Delhi for not being able to explain use of 1,600 pairs of gloves and 400 syringes for a 26-day stay in ICU on one CGHS patient. This case follows the media outcry in the Fortis case in Haryana, where a dengue patient in intensive care was billed for a large number of gloves.
If we take this particular instance, 1,600 pairs of gloves comes out to be 61 pairs of gloves per day.
In any ICU, there are three shifts of staff and everyone coming in contact with the patient is required to wear non-sterile gloves. Per patient, at least over nine nurses, three technicians, three members of house keeping staff, three resident doctors, three consultants (two treating consultants and the intensive care consultant) are involved in the treatment of that particular patient.
So, if a patient is examined at least three times, as is done with each change in shift duty, a total of 63 pairs of gloves will be a minimum number used in ICU in a day. This number may double or triple, if the patient is on ventilator. As of now gloves are not under price control thus their prices are not rationalised resulting in high medical bills of patients, said Dr Aggarwal, immediate past national president of IMA.