Renowned cardiothoracic surgeon Padmashri Dr Cherian filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Madras High Court accusing regulatory authorities of red-tapism and general apathy resulting in the abysmal state of medical research in the country. In his petition, he sought a court order to consider medical research as the need of the hour and take necessary steps to establish a framework and revive scientific research in the country to benefit the public.
Dr Cherian, a world-famous cardiothoracic surgeon and Promoter of the Frontier Lifeline Hospitals in Chennai, filed a PIL against various government departments, including the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Niti Aayog and the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR).
It may be recalled that the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) had in 2019 ordered the liquidation of the Frontier Lifeline Hospitals after it defaulted on the payment of over Rs 150 crore in dues as of November 2017. In his petition, Dr Cherian points out that the institution was pushed to financial distress after bank loans were treated as manufacturing/industrial loans. As a result, research had to be suspended. He sought the High Court to direct the Centre to create a framework which allows repayment schedule of loans to begin after at least 8-10 years from the disbursement of loans.
In his petition Dr Cherian listed down the research projects that India was supposed to carry out but had lost out due to red-tapism and procedural delays. Referring to a project that was lost to a research team in Singapore, Dr Cherian said that it had required an approval from the CPCSEA within four months, but the approval did not come through because “...our regulatory bodies could not understand the importance and we lost national credibility among other countries”.
Pointing out that several patents in the field of cardiothoracic surgery are pending with the authorities for several years, Dr Cherian said that there is a complete lack of support from the government and from the statutory bodies. Adding that even the bank loans provided for medical research purposes were not treated with the appropriate sensibilities of the time and energy required for a medical research project to bear fruit. “...Bankers turned a blind eye toward the fact that there was no support from the government agencies with regards to funding the project and considering the entire project similar to a commercial loan, the Bankers had also charged higher interest rate which was like adding fuel to fire (sic),” the petition added.
“...on various occasions I had approached various authorities, state government and departments for the revival of the project and research. I hereby further submit that all the representations and pleadings went into deaf ears and no support culminated,” he stated. He added that he had discussed these issues with the Prime Minister in 2015 and with Niti Aayog as well.
Citing his own example, Dr Cherian stated that the country has no framework or guidelines to support medical research and that there is an absolute lack of support and assistance from statutory bodies like Niti Aayog and DCGI.
“While government institutions like the ICMR do not face many hardships in continuing with their research, the private medical research entities are being pushed to the wall in case of financial distress, and they are having to face the threat of having to give up their research endeavours despite showing immense promise in coming up with viable, marketable, good quality and significantly less expensive medical device products for the country,” he added.
Pointing out that developing indigenous capability to produce the latest medical devices and drugs assumes significance at the time of a global pandemic like COVID-19, Dr Cherian added that it can happen only where there is an established framework for medical research in terms of funding and operation.