Delhi-based healthcare advocacy groups are going to make a representation to the Union health ministry towards making cardiac treatment affordable through framing a policy on the same. The representation will be made around the time when the deadline towards framing a policy is drawing near as per the Delhi High Court (HC) directive. The responses and discussions will also be shared with National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) and Delhi Government.
A bench of acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar of Delhi HC had earlier directed the Union health ministry to control the rate of operation charges, doctors' visiting charges, nursing charges and to draft a policy within four months for controlling the rates of all these services.
The patients are charged between Rs. 2,39,684 and Rs. 2,16,229 as angioplasty package which is a huge cost despite the fact that the NPPA through a notification on February 14, 2017 had fixed ceiling prices of cardiac stents with bare metal stents cost being brought down to Rs. 7,260 from Rs. 45,000 and that of drug eluting stents at Rs. 29,600.
The petitioner advocate Birender Sangwan had also earlier filed PILs against 18 hospitals at Delhi HC for violation of ceiling prices fixed for coronary stents.
Follwing the HC directive, Delhi government is also implementing the Clinical Establishments (CE) Act to control angioplasty charges in cardiac care centres.
Prior to this, the cardiac stents alone used to cost Rs. 1.2 lakh. The price control notification therefore was a huge relief for cardiac patients across the country.
The step was taken to fix a standardised specification of stent and its MRP to stop fleecing of patients. Following this, NPPA has also written to all the chief secretaries to ensure compliance of stent price capping, its availability and uninterrupted cardiac care services.
NPPA reported that there are 300 such cases of cardiac stent overcharging in which either stent price is not mentioned in the medical bill or billing is made in the name of angioplasty charges or cath lab charges and also not mentioning brand name and company of the stents.
Government capped the prices of cardiac stents based on the conclusion drawn from a committee of experts in 2015 which revealed that all cardiac stents are of the same quality and therefore needs price rationalization.