'Fake' labs mushroom in city, patients suffer

Patna: Mukesh Hissariya thanks heaven that he does not have to pop pills to keep in check his blood sugar levels. Had he accepted the report of a pathological lab on the city’s Govind Mitra Road at face value, he would have to. A blood donor with connections in the medical fraternity, the man in mid-40s went for a second and even third opinion, and “I am saved, you see”.
The Bank Road lab’s test report showed Hissariya’s postprandial blood glucose level at 148mg/dl on October 4. Only a day earlier, his peak level of the blood sugar was reported to be 356mg/dl by the Govind Mitra Road lab!
A tad confused, Hissariya had his blood sample taken two hours after meal by a big-banner lab’s franchise in the city. Its result matched with the Bank Road lab’s. “Mind it, I had the blood taken out of my veins exactly 120 minutes after the meal -- at all the three labs,” said Hissariya who runs a drug store on Govind Mitra Road.
What added to the indignation of Hissariya was the “utterly irresponsible” response of the “erring” lab when he went to complain about the “criminal negligence”. “They nonchalantly offered me to repeat the test for free if I so wished,” he told TOI earlier this week.
Hissariya’s is not a one-off case. Doctors are also complaining. Not only physicians, pathologists too rue the mushrooming growth of illegal labs. The Bihar chapter of Indian Association of Pathologists and Microbiologists (IAPM) has even filed a PIL in the Patna high court, seeking a directive to the government to crack down on such labs.
The IAPM had in fact written to the Medical Council of India as well as the Bihar health department bosses in 2014, complaining about this. “Patients are wrongly being diagnosed and thus wrongly treated,” the letter read and added patients’ life was in danger due to the mafia’s stranglehold on this life-saving diagnostic field.
The letter made startling revelations. While MCI rules prescribe a pathological lab must have a dedicated pathologist who should sign every test report, the letter hinted many labs were being run by technicians. “Pathologists’ name and signature are being misused (forged)... For example, one particular pathologist is (purported to be) present in ten different districts of the state on the same date, which is impossible,” the letter pointed out.
The letter, also marked to Union health ministry officials, alleged most labs in Bihar lacked proper diagnostic equipment, qualified technicians and qualified phlebotomist (who collects blood samples from patients).
“According to MCI rules, one pathologist can give services in not more than five labs and that too within a prescribed distance. Patna has at best 50 trained pathologists, but even a conservative estimate puts the number of labs in the city at 2,000. Who are managing them? Labs can be found wholesale outside big hospitals like PMCH, NMCH and IGIMS. The gullible masses suffer,” IAPM’s Bihar chapter joint secretary Dr Prabhat Ranjan fumed.
However, the administration pleads helplessness. “The Patna high court earlier this year ordered no coercive action against the labs or hospitals not registered under the Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act. What can we do?” asked Patna civil surgeon Dr G S Singh.
The IAPM still sees a way out. “The high courts of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, MP and UP have ruled in favour of MCI rules. Using these rulings, the Bhagalpur and Purnia civil surgeons ordered raids on labs in 2014. Many of them were found running without qualified pathologists,” Dr Ranjan claimed and wondered why couldn’t the Patna civil surgeon take a cue from his Purnia and Bhagalpur counterparts.
The International Standards Organisation and the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) are into certifying medical labs. Though not mandatory, the accreditation by these non-government bodies is considered by experts as a proof of quality infrastructure at the certified lab. Bihar has only ten NABL-accreditated labs.