Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Reduce the price of medical stents considerably' that was published in Newsband

Reduce the price of medical stents considerably

Medical stents are used to treat coronary artery disease. The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) should reduce the price of these stents considerably considering the fact that there is a huge demand for these.  Rising costs have led to impoverishment of families.

Research published in The Lancet in December 2015 says that nearly two-thirds of the high out-of-pocket expenditure on health incurred by Indians went towards drugs. There was irrational use of medical technologies, including cardiac stents and knee implants. Regulated prices can make stents more accessible to patients who really need them. Reduce the incentive for unethical hospitals to use them needlessly.

The average age at which the first heart attack strikes Indians is 50, a decade earlier than people in developed nations. In India, there is urgent need to improve access to medicines and technology. Public spending on health should be lessened considerably. Several developing countries have moved ahead on this path. Well-considered price control is a positive step.

The behavior of our government on this issue is strange. On the one hand our government wants to control stent prices to help particularly the poor. But on the other it has in the recent budget imposed service tax of 5% on medical treatment.

Price lowering can be a step so that a chunk of poor patients may get a chance to get treated themselves at a private hi-tech hospital. National pharmaceutical pricing Authority should fix the price of medicines in a more effective way in all medical technologies and pharmaceutical products specially in cardiac treatment related technologies so that general public can enjoy the health facilities. In advanced countries these treatments are very common but due to poor public health facilities in government hospitals and excessive commercial nature of private hospitals, treatment of cardiac and other dangerous diseases are out of reach for common men of India. So the Government should take strong action against drug mafias and provide qualitative health facilities in all government hospitals.

Cardiac diseases are only a minor proportion of out of pocket expenditure for common man. Common problems like fevers, gastroenteritis, pregnancy, cause more out of pocket expenditure & financial burden to family & loss of employment. Only solution to improve Public health facilities is to remove all medical reimbursement for politicians and make it compulsory for all politicians & their families to take treatment in public health facilities. Only then they will realize the plight of common man.

Angioplasty and placing of stents are very common treatment in the advanced countries. It can save so many lives and increase working age and there will be more experienced people in the work force. Hence reducing the price of stents is very necessary.