Chhattisgarh used poor quality drugs - Raipur

The state-owned Chhattisgarh Medical Services Corporation (CGMSC) is in the eye of a storm over alleged procurement of drugs that failed quality tests in different laboratories in India. The role of CGMSC, the central drug procurement agency of the state government, has come under the scanner after the tragic deaths of 14 poor young women following tubectomies performed in free health camps in Chhattisgarh’s Bilaspur district, allegedly due to spurious drugs.

Enquiries revealed that three samples of a drug used for sanitisation of surgical equipment and the operation theatre had failed quality tests in seven different private laboratories. But the officials concerned continued to procure the drug, ignoring the adverse reports of the laboratories.

Incidentally, the drug has been purchased from private manufacturing units. “CGMSC procured the sanitisation drug, worth around Rs 2 crore, in the current financial year. The drug has now been withdrawn from government hospitals in the state and dumped in warehouses of CGMSC following the exposure of irregularities in its procurement,” a senior officer in the state government told this newspaper here on Thursday on condition of anonymity.

Shockingly, multi-vitamin capsules procured from private agencies in a similar manner by CGMSC have quietly been withdrawn from government hospitals following complaints about their quality from some doctors.

Senior officers in the state health department were tight-lipped on the issue. Earlier, the exposure of alleged favour shown by the state government to controversial drug firm Mahawar Pharmaceuticals Pvt. Ltd, which allegedly supplied drugs to the tragedy-hit sterilisation camps, had rocked the state.

The licence of the firm was cancelled eight times earlier for manufacturing substandard drugs, but still the company managed to get a “good manufacturing practice award” in 2014 from the state government.



Source : The Asian Age , 21st Nov 2014