SOG probe ordered into complaints of hospitals charging patients for stents arbitrarily
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Rajasthan high court. Image credit: Post staff
Jaipur: Rajasthan high court has asked the special operations group (SOG) to launch an investigation into the reports that hospitals in Jaipur are charging patients arbitrarily for stents. Hospitals are violating the government’s order that fixed prices of stents, a petition filed in the court alleged.
The single bench of Justice SP Sharma said that an additional director general of police will head an investigation team consisting of drug controller and expert doctors.
One Gayendra Kumar Pareek had filed a petition in the matter.
The court has asked SOG to submit a report by July 5.
The court said the fact that government and insurance companies are reimbursing didn’t mean hospitals could charge for stents arbitrarily.
According to a notification issued by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) in February, prices of drug eluting stent would be fixed at ₹29,600, while that of bare metal stents would stand at just ₹7,260. In comparison, the prices of drug eluting stents now range between ₹40,000 and ₹1.98 lakh. Similarly, bare metal stents cost patients between ₹30,000 and ₹75,000 on an average.
According to data shared by the NPPA earlier, prices of stents jump exponentially by as much as 1,000 per cent from the production till the time it reaches patients, with hospitals enjoying abnormally high margins of 650 per cent, in some cases.
