Mumbai: The Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER) is conducting an audit of 35 suppliers providing medicines to the state-run Jamshedji Jeejeebhoy (JJ), Cama & Albless, Gokuldas Tejpal (GT) and St George hospitals. Officials said of the nearly 1,000 medicine suppliers working with them, 35 are creating a hue and cry, which may lead to getting them blacklisted in the future.
Dr TP Lahane, the DMER Director, said the hospital can purchase only 10% of medicines at the local level but the suppliers are demanding an outstanding amount of Rs60 crore for which they have to conduct an audit.
“All the payments will be done once the audit reports are out. For now, we are conducting an audit of 35 suppliers who have stopped supplying medicines to the hospitals,” he said.
For the last six days, the supplier have stopped supplying medicines to these hospitals, badly affecting the patients, as it has created a shortage of medicines in the hospitals. On the other hand, the hospital deans and DMER are claiming there is no shortage of medicines and none of the patients was affected.
“All the hospitals are operating smoothly and there has been no postponement of any surgery or operation. We have a medicine stock for three months, so there is no question of shortage. If the medicine supplier continues to threaten the administration by stopping the supply of medicines, they will be blacklisted in future,” Dr Lahane added.
Meanwhile, Abhay Pandey, national president, All Food and Drug Licence Holder Foundation (AFDLHF) said they are constantly getting orders from JJ Hospital, but they cannot fulfil their supply orders due to cash crunch.
“Recently, we received orders from JJ of some important medicines locally, as well as orders of kits used for screening of cancers, malaria and HIV, but we will not be able to fulfil the order,” he said. “We will not supply any medicines until our outstanding dues of Rs60 crore is cleared,” he added.
