Mumbai The long-pending issue of medicines shortage at the civic-run hospitals is likely to come to an end, as the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has ordered all concerned officers to complete the procurement procedure of medicines by January-end.
This comes after BMC commissioner Praveen Pardeshi on Friday signed the file related to the purchase of medicines stock in hospitals, which will be tabled at the standing committee meeting this week.
“All documents and files related to medicines have been cleared by the civic chief and once the files get the approval in the standing committee, the procurement process will start,” said a senior official.
Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner (AMC), BMC health department said on January 3 that they had a detailed discussion on procuring medicines and solving the problem, which could benefit patients at the civic-run hospital.
“There has been a shortage of medicines for more than a year, which needed to be solved immediately. We held a meeting with the civic chief and officers related to the drug department, which was fruitful as the civic chief approved all the files and ordered drug officers to start the procurement immediately, after it has been passed in the standing committee,” he said.
To benefit thousands of patients, the administration used to procure medicines from a local dealer. But they were also facing a shortage, due to which the decision has been taken on a priority basis.
“The problem will be solved by the mid-February, as 50 per cent of the life saving drugs will be procured and made available at all civic-run hospitals. We are also working on certain decisions so that in future we do not face a similar problem,” Kakani added.
Meanwhile, BMC corporators said these issues should have been solved by the administration earlier when there was a shortage of medicines. The process of procuring medicines is completely wrong and this causes delays.
“The corporation asks hospitals about the quantum of medicines they want and after that they float a tender.
Even though the deans are asked to procure medicines, often patients are left with no option but to buy them from outside,” said Rais Shaikh, group leader, Samajwadi Party.
