Usher in transparency, not price controls

My friend Kabir recently narrated his ordeal when his father suffered a stroke.

- HARSH ROONGTA

The Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) revealed bleeding in the brain. Kabir's father needed constant monitoring and medical support available only in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU). After initially admitting his father in the ICU of a small hospital, Kabir tirelessly worked his connections to transfer him to a larger, more renowned hospital. He succeeded in doing so only after two or three days of pulling all the strings he could.

This episode occurred in 2018, well before the Covid-19 pandemic. Kabir's affluent family had no problem paying for the treatment. And they were based in Mumbai, a city one would presume possessed adequate medical infrastructure. The scarcity of high quality hospital beds, even for those able to pay, highlighted the inadequacy of India's medical infrastructure, a fact that later got magnified during the pandemic.

This reflection prompted by a recent Supreme Court ruling, directing the Union health secretary to coordinate with state counterparts to decide and notify a standardised fee structure for hospital services nationwide. This step is intended to harmonise treatment costs. In my view, this decision, if implemented, could worsen the situation rather than improve it.