Failure of public healthcare has forced people into pvt hospitals: Dr Anand Rai

Dr Anand Rai, ophthalmic surgeon and activist, talks to Maitri Porecha about medical malpractices and an unholy nexus of various stakeholders.

Doctors often prescribe expensive drugs, favouring pharmaceutical companies…

Pharma companies give offers to private hospital doctors for using their drugs or stents. They directly or indirectly prevail upon doctors by arranging their medical conferences or gifting them cars or ensuring that their bank loan instalments are paid. Recently, a pharma company took 25 neurologists on a foreign trip. There are multiple such examples.

It is the government's responsibility to provide us with basic healthcare...

The government has failed. Patients are forced to flock to private hospitals, which are businesses to fleece them. Recently, we filed a case in the court against Bombay Hospital in Indore, where land was given at lower costs to the private hospital so that they could provide a quota to treat the poor. In the extracted list of beneficiaries, we found that numerous VIPs had benefitted from free treatment in the poor quota.

There are several reports about the rampant nexus between the government and private doctors...

Between 2005 and 2010, there were 81 alleged deaths due to wrongly conducted clinical trials where drugs were being tested by a host of private doctors from multiple specialities in MY Government Hospital of Indore.

What is the responsibility of regulatory bodies such as the Medical Council of India?

A criminal complaint was filed with the police regarding the drug trial case but it was forwarded back to the superintendent of the public hospital. The MCI gave Madhya Pradesh Medical Council orders asking the latter to suspend licenses of guilty doctors, against which the doctors moved High Court. MCI was later asked to file responses within three weeks in the case, they did not, leading to the accused private doctors obtaining a stay. Everyone shields each other here.