Ghulam Nabi Azad

Calcutta, Nov. 29: The Centre is considering a bill to prohibit doctors from accepting gifts from pharmaceutical companies in return for “unnecessary favours”, Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said today.

Azad, who came to Calcutta from Srinagar to attend a seminar, said an “unholy nexus” existed between some doctors and drug manufacturers.

He said such doctors prescribed costly medicines, pushed by certain pharmaceutical companies, even when cheaper options were available in the market or were being given free by government hospitals.

Azad was delivering a speech at a seminar on healthcare and medical education in Bengal, organised by a new association of doctors called the Nationalistic Doctors’ Forum. Some of the figures associated with the apolitical organisation are said to be sympathetic to the Congress.

“To stop this unholy nexus between doctors and pharma companies, the Union government is keen to make a law where the doctors will be dissuaded from taking any kind of gifts, either in cash or in kind, from the pharma companies. This law will be formulated and implemented very soon,” he said.

It is not clear how the government plans to verify if doctors or their relatives are receiving gifts or not and if companies are footing their travel bills — a favour some medical practitioners accept.

The Nationalistic Doctors’ Forum supported the move. “We have always believed that gifts given to doctors by medical representatives and tours they are taken on by pharma companies are problem areas and we will lend our support to the government to ensure that this stops,” said Tarun Adhikari, the president of the forum.

Gautam Mukhopadhyay, the head of oncology at Ruby General Hospital in Calcutta, said: “A minuscule proportion of doctors indulge in such practices and give the profession a bad name. It would be good to have such a law.”

Non-government organisations working in the health sector have been asking for such a law.

An earlier study in four Indian cities — Kochi, Chennai, Vellore and Lucknow — showed that doctors prescribed antibiotics for uncomplicated viral illnesses that would probably not have needed such treatment.

Azad announced that the Bengal government had agreed to provide land for a medical college and hospital on the lines of AIIMS.

“The 960-bed super speciality hospital will come up on 100 acres at a cost Rs 850 crore. Another Rs 140 crore has been allocated under the Pradhan Mantri Swastha Suraksha Yojana for the upgrade of Calcutta Medical College and Hospital,” Azad said.

Raiganj was earlier mentioned as the likely location for the AIIMS-like hospital. But a state official said land was yet to be identified for the facility.