PESHAWAR, Jan 17: Smuggled disposable surgical items are causing infection and loss to the national exchequer, doctors and officials have told Dawn.
"Chinese surgical items have flooded the markets on such a scale that local traders and doctors are finding it hard to cope with the situation," a surgeon said.
He said high costs of the products marketed by multinational companies had paved the way for the smuggled items to capture the market. Items like catheter, urinary bag, flatus tube, stomach tube, silk and catgut are offered by foreign firms to shopkeepers at 15 per cent to 20 per cent commission, whereas they get more than 50 per cent profit on smuggled products.
"We prefer selling Chinese items because of the profit. Secondly, the multinational companies want the money at the time of delivery of their products, whereas the dealers of smuggled items can wait for months," said a shop owner at the Namak Mandi medicines market.
Surgeons argue that the smuggled items aren't sterilized and many patients get infections after their use. "As there is no mechanism to check if an item is sterile, there are more chances of the patients getting infections," said a surgeon. He said Chinese catgut and silk used stitching during operations were much cheaper than those marketed by multinational manufacturers.
The price of a piece of catgut in the market was Rs400 while the Chinese ones are available for less than Rs100, a shopkeeper said. A surgeon said he had operated on a patient for kidney stone last month but his kidney got infected. Later, an operation theatre assistant told him that the patient had bought Chinese catgut, which was probably not sterilized, he said.
A shopkeeper said the Chinese products had been modelled after the ones manufactured by multinational companies and it was difficult for surgeons and the operation theatre staff to differentiate between those.
Intravenous canola has also caused infections in some hospitals. A nurse said intravenous canola had caused infection to at least 10 patients during the month. Shopkeepers argue that there is no difference between the original and smuggled items.
"I have invested Rs1 million in marketing of canola but the number of buyers is not in line with the market's demand," said a wholesale dealer. He said that from market survey he came to know that the owners of retail outlets were purchasing Chinese products.
Hospitals were also purchasing Chinese disposable items, a clerk at a teaching hospital claimed. "We pay sale tax on every item we sell but the sellers of smuggled items do not pay any tax," said a wholesaler.