ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court will hear today (Monday) a suo motu case pertaining to the sale of imbedding substandard cardiac stents. The case will be heard by a three-member Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar, Justice Umar Ata Bandial and Justice Ijazul Ahsan. Attorney general, advocates general of all provinces, health secretary, Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) chief executive officer and other senior concerned officials will appear before the court on notice. According to reports, substandard stents were being used at government and private hospitals across the country in alleged connivance with doctors and the DRAP. Last year, after the Supreme Court took suo motu notice of the matter, five legislators belonging to different political parties had moved a calling attention notice in the National Assembly and drew the attention of the House to unregistered stents and substandard lenses that were causing grave concern among the public. Taking notice of the calling attention notice, the health minister had set up a committee whose members had visited a number of government and private hospitals across the country and found that substandard stents were being used there. Action was taken against the hospitals and some of them were sealed. Government hospitals which were found using substandard stents include the Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar, Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), Islamabad, Mayo Hospital, Lahore and Ayub Medical Hospital, Abbottabad. The private hospitals which were found selling and inserting substandard stents include the Shifa International Hospital, Islamabad, and the Kulsum International Hospital, Islamabad. The National Assembly was told last year by Parliamentary Secretary for Health Mohsin Shahnawaz Ranjha that there were 55 types of stents, with variants, which had been registered by the DRAP. According to the information given to the apex court by the government, around 55 (companies supplying) stents were registered with the DRAP and there were 68 types of stents. During an earlier hearing of the case, Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar had said that safeguarding cardiac patients from spurious or substandard stents was the real motive behind the suo motu notice taken by the Supreme Court in the matter. The court had taken the notice on reports that some public health institutions such as the cardiac ward of Mayo Hospital Lahore and some other government-run hospitals in Punjab were either implanting stents into patients even when the intrusive procedure was simply not required or if the same was needed, the patients were charged exorbitantly up to Rs 180,000 per stent. Published in Daily Times, January 29th 2018.