-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Delhi government is likely to come out with a policy to cap profit margins for hospitals this week. A first for any state, the policy will cover sale of medicines, consumables and devices to patients. The state government had appointed a nine-member committee in December last year to suggest the scope and process of capping prices. The move followed public outrage on the death of...

-The Hindu NITI Aayog member says national health scheme will aim to keep cheaters out Mumbai: To curb illegal mass surgeries, policy makers working on the National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS) are planning to restrict surgical procedures like hysterectomies and appendectomies to public sector hospitals. Dr Vinod Paul, member, NITI Aayog, said on Saturday that such procedures could also be dropped from the scheme. “Procedures like these can be misused. We have...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Union health ministry has banned the sale of formulations with oxytocin through retail chemists and restricted domestic manufacture to public sector companies amid concerns about the clandestine manufacture and sale of the drug, believed to be misused in the dairy sector. The new rules come into effect from July 1. The government has also banned the import of oxytocin and its formulations, but public and private sector...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The father of an eight-year-old boy who died in a private hospital in Gurgaon last year from dengue complications said on Thursday the hospital had refunded the full billed amount of about Rs 15 lakh after appeals by an MP and the health ministry. Public health activists said the refund had been made on condition that Gopendra Parmar withdraw the police complaint of overcharging he had filed against...

-The Times of India The transfer of the chairman of the National Pharmceutical Pricing Authority, Bhupendra Singh, who had capped the price of stents and knee implants and exposed the huge margins being charged by corporate hospitals has evoked howls of protest from public health activists. RSS-affiliate Swadeshi Jagran Manch too has taken exception to the move, tweeting sarcastically about the “reward” given to a bureaucrat for doing a good job. The All...