JOIN USThe Union Health Ministry has woken up finally to the problem of doctors subjecting patients to unnecessary medical tests. A sting operation by a television news channel that was aired recently laid bare a racket wherein diagnostic centres pay doctors to send their patients to them for tests.
What is appalling about such rackets is that lured by the hefty sums offered by diagnostic centres – in some instances involving MRI tests and CT scans, for instance, doctors get 50 per cent of the bill amount – medical practitioners recommend patients to undergo needless tests.
While doctors and diagnostic centres make a fast buck, the patient bears the financial burden.Much of what the sting operation revealed is not new. But it confirms what many of us have suspected for long: lured by easy money, doctors are abandoning their professional ethics.
Besides the financial burden of these tests is the damage some of them do to the patient. Exposure to radiation is harmful. Yet X-rays, MRIs and CT scans are freely ordered by doctors.
Even pregnant women are made to undergo needless scans which expose the foetus t dangerous radiation. This lack of ethics isn’t restricted to tests. Patients are recommended surgeries such as stent procedures, knee replacements, caesarean operations, etc when these options are not required.
An imaging test may pick up an abnormality or even a cancer but even when these are not aggressive or life-threatening, doctors suggest surgical procedures. Obviously, they are exploiting the anxieties of patients when they recommend these tests and surgeries.
A crackdown on erring doctors and diagnostic centres isn’t enough as this racket is a mere tip of the iceberg. The role of hospital authorities in compelling doctors to bring in more business, even encouraging them to indulge in malpractice, must be investigated and punished.
Health Minister Harsh Vardhan has called on the Medical Council of India (MCI) to convene a meeting of its ethics committee. Leaving the problem to the MCI to address is not prudent as rarely has this body acted to demand higher ethical standards from doctors.
A panel of respected health professionals and consumer law experts to suggest measures to ensure greater accountability in medical practice may be more fruitful. A larger process, which makes ethics underpin medical practice is needed.
Initiatives like the Society for Less Investigative Medicine started by doctors at the All-India Institute for Medical Sciences must campaign to spread public awareness on the dangers of needless testing.