Prices of stents to be fixed

Most heart patients in need of angioplasty and stents have been taking the trouble of going to neighbouring India for surgery since the government there fixed the price of stents at Rs 30,000. In our country, however, there is no such thing as having a maximum retail price (MRP) on the various brands of bare-metal stent, which had, till now allowed public and private hospitals to charge any amount they pleased. There have been allegations that the profit mark-up and doctors' commissions for recommending different brands (in the absence of proper government regulation) allowed for price of stents to vary wildly. All that could change now. As per a decision by the Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA), patients can now choose which stent they want as there will be MRP and date of expiry printed on the packet.

While all this is very good news provided the DGDA is able to enforce the decision on all importing companies, we should also like to emphasise that post-operative care is just as important as the operation itself for heart patients. Here too, there are major problems as hospitals follow no set rules as to what patients will be charged as they recuperate from surgery. The question of post-operative care and costs involved for any cardiovascular patient need to be rationalised across the board if the health ministry hopes to make qualitative improvements for heart patients. Rationalising prices of stents will go a long way to help people of fixed incomes suffering from heart conditions greatly and it is our hope that authorities concerned will look into rationalisation of other associated services in hospitals too. Only then will the poor truly benefit.