As India's corporate healthcare system faces allegations ranging from skyrocketing price to profit-driven practices, over 80 per cent doctors believe that corporate hospitals are encouraging unethical practices.
The poll, which was conducted by Curofy, a community of verified doctors, interviewed 2,570 doctors and 86.38 per cent of doctors said that "corporate hospitals are encouraging unethical practices".
"Better corporatisation is required in the healthcare industry. Hospitals cannot control the ethics of the doctor, it is a competitive market and hence the sensitivity is less," said Dr Anil Kohli, a senior consultant of Apollo.
"Hospitals need to be more transparent, there is also a wide variation in the medical expenses, pharma companies have a margin of 30-40 per cent so profit could be made around that area," he said.
A section of doctors also felt that corporate hospitals are not promoting unethical practices. About 8.63 per cent of the polled votes supported that.
"I feel all doctors are ethical and they do not do any unethical practices. However, with businessmen venturing into the healthcare industry it is a different point. They have their own principles but doctors will not do anything unethical ever," said Dr Vijay Arora, Emeritus Consultant, General Laparoscopic Surgery, from Sir Ganga Ram Hospital.
About 4.66 per cent doctors stood divided and couldn't say if corporatisation has led to unethical practices or not.
"Corporatisation is necessary to provide quality healthcare to the patients. It keeps the competition to be better alive. But the poll result clearly showed that we need stronger laws to keep unethical practices in check," said Nipun Goyal, Co founder, Curofy.
