Patients charged exorbitant rates by some Sri Lankan specialists
View(s):How patients are mercilessly taxed could be seen when one medical specialist charges one amount in one hospital for a consultation and then changes nine times more in another hospital.
This fact was made public by Dr. Rajitha Senaratne, Minister of Health, Nutrition and Indigenous Medicine, inaugurating the ‘Mahajana Suwathena’ Healthcare Exhibition 2017 held at the BMICH last week.
This exhibition was held to mark the 50th anniversary of the Ceylon College of Physicians (CCP) and also to educate the general public of the latest developments in the medical sector.
Dr. Senaratne pointed out that it is sad to see how private hospitals charge patients and said that the ministry would be conducting comprehensive audits to ascertain the real state of affairs in a bid to cut down the charge to patients.
He said that they were able to get huge price cuts for things like stents now reduced to around Rs. 175,000 compared to around Rs. 350,000 earlier. Cataract lenses are given to all the hospitals to be issued to patients free of charge and also in the market they could be bought at cheaper prices.
He said that when he started working on the price reductions, those traders who have been making millions and millions of profit threatened to close their shops saying that they would not be able to generate enough profits to survive. But, Dr. Senaratne pointed out that no one has ‘closed shop’ due to price cuts.
Stressing the importance of the current medical exhibition, he said that it is vital to educate the general public of the latest developments in the medical sector and said that elsewhere in the world a revolution in the medical sector is taking place where the treatment is not on the illness itself, but on the root cause and DNA, indicating that all the strenuous medical studies that the doctors have followed would only become a matter of history.
Prof. S.D. Jayaratne, President, Ceylon College of Physicians, said that they are happy that the Healthcare Exhibition 2017 was also held to mark their 50th anniversary. He also endorsed that educating the public on health issues and developments in the field of medicine is vital.
He said that the Minister of Health has done something impossible to penetrate the medical mafia and reduce the prices of essential medicine, especially for the benefit of the poor. (QP)