Delhi Hospitals Herapheri

Eye opener - Max Hospital Patparganj

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has found Max Super Specialty Hospital, Patparganj and Becton Dickson India Pvt Ltd, a manufacturer of disposable syringes, prima facie guilty of colluding to sell disposal syringes from the hospital's inhouse pharmacy at double the open market price.

The CCI has asked its director general to investigate the issue within 60 days and to fix responsibility on officials or persons who were in charge in the two establishments if it found that the Competition Act 2002 was violated.

According to the complaint filed by Vijay Sharma, he had purchased a disposable syringe of a particular brand of Becton Dickson of a specified size from the inhouse pharmacy of Max Hospital in Patparganj for Rs 19.50, the maximum retail price (MRP) printed on it. Later, when Sharma purchased the same syringe of the same company, brand and quality from a store in Ashok Vihar he had to pay only Rs 10 against a printed MRP of Rs 11.50.

Sharma filed a complaint that the company in collusion with Max hospital was supplying syringes with a higher MRP printed on them to cheat patients. He pointed out that in the inhouse pharmacy, the hospital stocked only syringes manufactured by Becton Dickson, leaving patients with no choice. Also, the company was printing a higher MRP on syringes supplied to Max than those being supplied in the open market to increase profit margins for both the hospital and itself. Sharma pointed out that Becton Dickson, being the sole supplier of disposable syringes to the hospital, was abusing its dominant position.

The CCI observed that once a patient is admitted in a hospital of the Max Group, he or she hardly has any option to purchase from the open market and that taking advantage of such a situation, the hospital in connivance with Becton Dickson had charged a higher price by raising the MRP, which was unfair.

Bejon Mishra, a consumer activist of the organisation Partnership for Safe Medicine, said such collusion between manufacturers or importers and hospitals to arbitrarily fix prices to fleece consumers indicated the need for the government to step in to protect consumers with a price capping mechanism or taxation linked to the MRP. "Gullible consumers have no idea about prices of competing medical devices and rely solely on the printed price or their faith in the hospital or doctor," he added.

"A common man ends up paying a high price for these devices as he is not offered any choice by the hospitals who insist that anything from multinational companies is better than those made in India," said Gurmit Singh of Translumina, a domestic manufacturer of drug eluting stents and joint forum coordinator of the Association of Indian Medical Device Industry (AIMED). He added that this was why the government was trying to cap prices through the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), for which a meeting was called earlier this week to discuss the disparity in MRP.

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