Joint replacement surgeons hailed government’s decision to cap the prices of knee implants
By Vinod Viplav
- Focus should be on improving the quality of Indian implants to reduce dependency on imported implants: Dr. Raju Vaishya
New Delhi, August, 17, 2017. Hailing the central government’s decision to cap price of knee implants, joint replacement surgeons today said that the government should make efforts to improve the quality of indigenously developed knee implants, so that dependency on imported implants should be reduced and also monitor the total cost of joint replacement surgery is not increased by other reasons than the cost of implants.
Senior Joint Replacement and orthopaedic surgeon Prof. (Dr.) Raju Vaishya of Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals said that this decision will benefit the patients of the middle and low income groups and they can get their painful & bad knee joints replaced on right time, but at same time it is also important to ensure that the quality of the knee implants is not compromised, due to capping of price.
Due to high cost of implants, knee replacement surgery has been expensive, but due to reduction of the cost of implants, the joint replacement surgery should become cheaper and much more affordable to the patients of middle and low income groups.
Professor Vaishya said that many times patients keep avoiding joint replacement surgery due to want of money, which makes their knee joints to worsen and they are forced to live a painful life. If knee replacement surgeries will get cheaper, then more patients will be able to get surgery done, on time and they can lead an active life.
He added that today prevalence of arthritis and osteoarthritis is increasing, mainly due to changing lifestyle and increasing obesity and not only it is affecting the older people but also the younger individuals. For this reason the knee replacement surgery and other joint replacement surgeries are being done in increasing numbers, in patients under the age of 65.
