With a people-over-profit attitude, the NPPA chairman had brought cardiac stents, knee implants and other pharmaceuticals under price control.
New Delhi: The Modi government’s decision to transfer the chairperson of the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) to the National Authority for Chemical Weapons Convention, a bureaucratic backwater – has evoked dismay among patient rights groups.
As NPPA chairman, Bhupendra Singh was responsible for bringing in price controls to check the soaring price of cardiac stents and orthopaedic knee implants last February.
Both these moves have been applauded numerous times by Prime Minister Modi – who even tried to take credit for the price cut even though it came following sustained litigation by a lawyer, Birendra Sangwan – but came under strong criticism from the medical industry in India and abroad.
Singh’s transfer comes just about a week after the NPPA came out with a damning report which showed private hospitals making margins on the procurement of various medical items of up to 1737%, and passing on higher costs to patients. The report was prepared in response to public and media uproar over startling cases of high costs in private hospitals and medical laxity in treatment.