The hospital took the decision after a sting operation by Zee Business showed a doctor from the medicine department accepting a gift voucher of Rs5,000

Sting op stings, KEM bans med representatives

The KEM hospital has banned medical representatives from entering the wards and the outpatient department. The hospital took the decision after a sting operation by Zee Business showed a doctor from the medicine department accepting a gift voucher of Rs5,000, along with a list of medicines from a leading pharmaceutical company’s sales representative. The hospital has put up boards in front of the casualty and the medical wards directing medical representatives and private laboratory personnel to stay off the wards. While it is no secret that doctors are routinely bribed to get them to prescribe costly medicines of particular brands, the civic hospital is, probably, the first to put up such a public notice. Patients have often complained that doctors in public hospitals prescribe costly variants of antibiotics or even acidity tablets. A KEM doctor prescribed Augmentin 625 to a 35-year-old labourer suffering from tonsillitis. A pack of six tablets of the heavy antibiotic, meant for severe infections, costs nearly Rs250. Since the daily earnings of the man hover around Rs100, he had to pay through the nose to get the tablets from a chemist outside the hospital. Medical experts say doctors rarely tell patients that the price of a particular medicine depends on the brand. “While Augmentin 625 is so costly, Milliclav 625 costs Rs120 and Sensiclav 625 Rs80,” Dr Anil Manerkar, private practitioner, said. All the three brands contain the same compounds. A medical representative said pharmaceutical companies earmark funds, specifically to bribe doctors in the form of costly gift vouchers, I-Pads or expensive mobile phones. “Companies normally keep aside Rs10-12 lakh for medical representatives for this purpose,” he said. “We shower doctors with such gifts so that they prescribe our brand of medicines.” The Medical Council of India guidelines makes it illegal for doctors to accept anything in cash or kind from pharmaceutical companies, Dr Sanjay Oak, dean of KEM hospital, said. “The BMC is investigating into the case of the medicine department doctor who was caught accepting a gift voucher in a sting operation,” he said. “The inquiry report is expected in two to three months.”