Health care scandal: Two more companies to be investigated over stent scam

One of the victims says he was advised to have his leg amputated

LAHORE: Two more companies, which provided unregistered stents to the Mayo Hospital, were identified by the FIA and included in the investigations.

During initial FIA raids at Mayo Hospital, the staff of four companies was taken into custody and stents were confiscated. The agency and other law enforcement agencies were investigating the case from all angles by reviewing records captured from Mayo Hospital, Drug Regulatory Authority Pakistan and Customs.



The magnitude of the scam could multiply manifold and is not only restricted to Punjab, a FIA senior official told The Express Tribune.

The FIA started receiving complaints from different victims. When It followed the application of one victim, they learnt that a stent of a company called Digital Imaging System was implanted. In addition, stents of another company identified as Cardiovascular Medical System were used at the Mayo Hospital, while the goods of Pak Punjab Cardiacs Medical System were also implanted.

A senior FIA official said revelations made during the investigations were astonishing. The inquiry was in the initial stages, but the case was already a pile of over six files thick.

The FIA asked for more records from Mayo Hospital, DRAP, Customs and companies involved in the case. The official said the investigation agency had written to DRAP and asked for a report on the stents taken into custody from the Mayo Hospital. However, the drug authority replied by saying it lacked the equipment to test these devices. He said these stents were still categorised as “spurious” as they were unregistered. He said the provision of a testing system for drugs or devices was the responsibility of the importer.

The officer, narrating the accounts of a complainant, said the prime suspect in the case planted a stent into the victim at the Mayo Hospital at a cost of Rs200,000.  A day after the surgery, infectious symptoms started appearing on the victim’s legs and he started suffering from severe pain.

When he complained to the doctor, the medic gave him an injection worth Rs100,000. The official continued that the man’s pain did not end there and the effects turned more severe with time. The victim’s thigh later ruptured and started turning blue. He went to Sheikh Zayed Hospital, where doctors advised him immediate amputation. He went to Fatima Memorial Hospital for a second opinion and was advised to do the same.

Five cardiologists of the Mayo Hospital have been found involved in the scam. Over 64 stents were inserted in 54 patients during the month of December 2016 at an average cost of Rs200,000.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 25^th, 2017.