Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Monday directed to send the copies of the report submitted by the Rawalpindi Institute of Cardiology (RIC) Interventional Cardiology Head Major General (r) Dr Azhar Kiyani over the production of inexpensive cardiac stents at local level to the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) and also to provincial governments to submit their comments within 10 days.

A three-member Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, Justice Umar Ata Bandial and Justice Ijazul Ahsan, ordered this while hearing a suo-motu case pertaining to sale and implantation of substandard cardiac stents on exorbitant rates.

In compliance with the court’s earlier orders, Dr Azhar Kiyani submitted a report of the committee constituted by the apex court on the inexpensive production of cardiac stents at local level.

During the hearing, the chief justice recalled that the court will also take up the issues of expensive dialysis and kidney treatment during the coming hearings.

He said there was good news for heart patients that now the cardiac stents will be available on Rs 0.1 million instead of Rs 0.3 million. Dr Azhar Kiyani told the court that the complete expenses of implanting a stent will be within Rs 100,000.

In January 2017, the chief justice had taken suo motu notice of substandard stents fraud in the cardiac ward of Mayo Hospital Lahore and other hospitals of Punjab. According to reports, the hospital staff applied substandard stents, which cost less and the amount received from patients was around Rs 180,000.

The reports also stated that in many cases, stents were not even implanted in patients, but the hospitals charged them for bogus angioplasties.

Published in Daily Times, February 27^th 2018.