Syringe and needle pain

Vital hospital consumables that are used in the thousands, are being sold at exorbitantly high prices, it has emerged in a survey by National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA). In some cases such items are sold even at 12 times the purchase price.

Disposable syringes with needle is found to be sold at 332 to 1251% of profit. Insulin pen and hypodermic needle are sold at margins of 57 to 789 per cent. Insulin syringes are sold to the retail outlets at 2.68 rupees per piece, but by the time it reaches the consumer, the price payable by the end user becomes 8 rupees.

A hypodermic disposable syringe of 5 ml is charged with 1251 per cent profit. They are sold at Rs 16.96 a piece. It has also emerged that hospital and drug stores sell the same syringe at Rs 97.

The current margin of profit for all syringes ranges between 664 and 356 per cent, thereby making the retailer the biggest beneficiary. And manufacturers seem to follow the practice of fixing jacked up maximum retail price so as to enable retailers and drug outlets derive a liberal margin.

The study regarding profits of hospital consumables was undertaken by NPPA as part of the exercise to check their prices of these items which constitute the most used item in hospitals.

Manufacturers themselves had taken certain measures to bring down the prices on the realization that they were unjustly high. The Syringes and Needles Manufacturers Association had also taken a decision that retailers should not get a profit higher than 75%, and distributors should not be given higher than 50 % margin. It was decided to implement it from January, but due to the stiff competition in the pharmaceutical business, big names turned their back to it. As for those who enforced it, hospitals refused to place order with them, and preferred to buy from entities that offered greater margins.

In the meantime, NPPA has tightened efforts to reduce the prices of 19 medical equipment items including catheters, syringes and artificial heart valves. The last date to submit the production cost of these items with their breakdown and other particulars is 15 of March. Earlier it was fixed as 31 May 2017.