Medical representatives barred from Centre-run hospitals

NEW DELHI: The health ministry has issued orders prohibiting medical representatives from entering the premises of Centre-run hospitals. The order, issued by Director General of Health Services (DGHS) Sunita Sharma, calls for strict directions to officials in the matter.

“Medical representatives may be requested to share recent advances regarding any treatment, investigation or procedure by email or other digital media,” the order states.Vinay Aggarwal, past national president of the Indian Medical Association, said the entry of medical representatives should be regulated and not banned. “If some medical representatives adopted illegal means such as gifting to sell their products they should be acted upon, but I don’t think it is wise to ban their entry altogether for simply talking about the products,” he said.Pharmaceutical and medical device companies spend a lot of money on marketing their products. It has often been alleged that their representatives push for sales of their respective products by offering gifts and even opportunities to the doctors to travel abroad for conferences and workshops.