I got to know that every referred case for angiography and angioplasty got a kickback of Rs 5,000 and Rs 15,000 respectively. Seeing this trend, doctors started paying referring doctors Rs 1 lakh in advance and adjusting it as and when patients came in. This menace slowly spread its tentacles all over the medical field, including radiological diagnostics and biochemistry laboratories. For every test ordered, 20 per cent of the bill was given back to the referring doctor. This led to doctors recommending unnecessary tests. The pharmaceutical companies also saw burgeoning business. Acclaimed doctors were given televisions sets, refrigerators, air conditioners and cars depending upon the prescriptions. General practitioners would prescribe unnecessary drugs, and were given returns in cash. A fascinating excerpt from Dr Upendra Kaul's When The Heart Speaks.
President A P J Abdul Kalam presented the awards at a function at the Ashoka Hall of the Rashtrapati Bhavan.\n\n
Though Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is undergoing a complex by-pass surgery, leading cardiologists on Saturday said it is a 'routine' operation and there is nothing to worry about. "No, I do not think there is any reason to worry. Everything should be all right because this operation is a routine one, which is done at AIIMS since 1975," AIIMS former director Dr P V Venugopal, who carried out the country's first heart transplant, said.
Get rid of these bad habits, says Upendra Kaul.
'If there was no sign that Loya suffered a heart attack, then what made the judges who were accompanying him believe that he had a heart attack'
The arguments remained inconclusive and would continue on Friday.
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