Abbottabad's ATH got lifesaving drugs without warranty

Internal inquiry recommends action against contractor, officials

ABBOTTABAD: An in-house inquiry committee has recommended action according to the law against officials of Ayub Teaching Hospital (ATH) and the local purchase contractor involved in supplying life-saving drugs having no warranty.

Many people coming to the largest health facility of the district in critical condition were injected spurious drugs, while their relatives thought the doctors were giving life-saving drugs to patients.

The two-member probe panel constituted by ATH Director Dr Athar Lodhi to find out the warranty of eight life-saving drugs supplied by the local purchase contractor submitted its report the other day.

ATH Director Dr Athar Lodhi, when contacted, confirmed that spurious life-saving drugs were supplied to the hospital during previous management by the local purchase contractor Fazal Surgical and Add Life Pharma a few months back.

Dr Lodhi said he ordered an inquiry and termed the supply a criminal negligence. Replying to a query, Dr Lodhi said the bacth of spurious life-saving drugs were supplied when Dr Khyal Afridi was the hospital director. The ATH administration has confiscated all the spurious items available in the stock.

The copy of the report was available with The Express Tribune on Wednesday. The report recommended action against all involved persons including previous management of the hospital as well as the supply contractor.

The two-member committee headed by Surgical-C Department Head Dr Irfanuddin Khattak and Internal Audit Manager Faheem Khan were assigned to probe into the supply of number of life-saving drugs which have no warranty. These medicines include injections of adrenaline, atropine, calcium gluconate, vitamin k and benzylpenicillin.

Sale of spurious and almost ineffective medicines — smuggled from China, India and Iran — is posing a great threat to millions of lives as many groups involved in this devilish business are active these days.

Pharmacists claim that most of these spurious drugs, particularly China made, are taken from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa to wholesale markets across the country. However, these medicines are mostly sold to retailers in the suburban or remote areas, to avoid checking by the officials of the Drug Regulatory Authority.

The copy of the inquiry report  available with The Express Tribune stated that committee during investigation has conducted hearing of the relevant staff including chief pharmacist as well as representative of contractor Fazal Surgical.

Besides, the report said, samples of these drugs collected by the local drug inspector confirmed that section 23 of the Drug Act 1976 was not complied with in the purchase and supply process.

The section 23 deals with import and sale of spurious drugs.

The report went on to state that Fazal Surgicals and Add Life Pharma has contradiction in the documents which they provided and their verbal statements.

The said supplier on one hand stated that related warranty was provided as per Drug Act 1976, while owner of the supply firm stated under oath that there was no warranty of these products provided to the institution.

It was further observed that the company has violated the clause 16 of the terms and conditions of the bidding documents by not providing the warranty of these medicines.

The three-page report further stated that it was responsibility of the hospital’s pharmacist who received these medicines to timely inform the relevant authority about the missing warranty and any other doubts about the product.

“There is no mechanism in the pharmacy section to have the stock in place for life saving drugs. Meaning thereby that these medicines are purchased through local market as and when required,” the report read.

It recommended action against the local purchase contractor for violating section 23 of the Drug Act by not mentioning the batch number and expiry dates on invoices and also violated the clause 16 of the bidding document.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 20^th, 2018.