Internationally, the amounts of money that pharma majors are paying out directly as costs and as settlements after legal battles, is mind-boggling. Trade estimates put the worth of the Indian pharma company at around `62,000 crore annually, while reports have indicated that almost eight per cent of this amount is set aside for ‘client development and satisfaction’. However, while doctors aren’t really complaining about whether they make enough money or not, scan labs, diagnostic centres and thousands of chemists and druggists (medical shops), complain that they are getting the raw end of the deal.
Not only do they have to toe the line with shelling out drugs that the doctors in the vicinity prescribe, they also get no monetary benefit for pushing a company’s drugs. “There is no extra money involved. See, the companies give us extra pills depending on how much we sell,” says Ravindran, who runs a medical shop on Vadapalani. If they’re a high volume sales shop, it might be able to get a ‘buy 100 tablets, get 100 tablets free’ deal from the suppliers and reps. In fact, on more than a few occasions, Ravindran admits to having heard tales of how doctors demand a 20 per cent cut on specific drugs prescribed, which was promised by the medical rep. “They told the doctor to take it from the medical shop and escaped with the ‘cut’, which they showed on the company bill,” he groans.
However, it’s the scan centres that really complain about facing the ire of patients. According to employees at major scan and diagnostics labs in the city, the reason why they have to charge between `11,000 and 15,000 for an MRI is because of the cuts they have to give to the doctors. “The margin that we need to pay doctors is almost 50 per cent. Also, it is good business, but the public often call us robbers, not knowing why we charge this much,” says Janardhanan K, the owner of a scan centre franchise in the city.
Doctors even relate the story of a neurologist who doesn’t even take a patient’s case without the person having an MRI taken at the scan centre of the doctor’s choice. It’s up to a few medical practitioners like Dr Isaac Newton Rajkumar who write that an MRI shouldn’t cost more than `3,000-5,000 on the prescription so that his patients aren’t cheated.
“The rot is present at all levels, but we are hopeful of looking at each area and checking this corruption step by step. The State government is committed to ensuring fair practices for the people’s benefit,” said a top official with the Health Department.
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