Senate panel calls for drug testing lab in capital

Patients being administered unchecked, untested medicines, Polyclinic ED tells Senate House Committee

ISLAMABAD: The Senate House Committee has recommended establishing a drug testing laboratory in Islamabad.

The medicines administered to patients at public hospitals in Islamabad are not tested, it was informed during the committee’s session was chaired by Senator Yusuf Badini at Parliament House.

The meeting also discussed procurement of a separate ambulance for Parliament Dispensary, amicable settlement on additional block of Parliament Lodges, delay in re-tendering of laundry and barber shops and verification of remaining sanitary worker at Parliament Lodges.

During a briefing by Polyclinic Hospital Executive Director Dr Shoaib Khan, the meeting learnt that patients in Islamabad were administered unexamined and untested medicines against the rules. The Senate panel said a summary should be moved for developing a drug testing lab in the capital at the earliest.

The Polyclinic chief further apprised the Senate panel that the government laboratory of the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) was not functioning for long. Dr Shoaib further said that a proposal for the establishment of drug testing laboratory in Islamabad has been sent to the ministry of health.

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The contract for supply of medicines for Polyclinic will be awarded after the establishment of the facility, he said, adding that the hospital administration had resolved to restrict entry of medical representatives of pharmaceutical companies at the health facility during OPD timings.

The hospital administration has become very cautious in purchase of drugs, because even some multi-national companies have been found involved in manufacturing substandard medicines.

Polyclinic executive director further told the committee that 15 of the 35 government dispensaries in Islamabad were unrecognised by DRAP from which six of the dispensaries including ones for Election Commission of Pakistan, P Block and Shariat Court have already been sealed while pressure is being mounted for closure of other such dispensaries. The Polyclinic executive director further said that he would soon introduce more reforms. The staff at several of the dispensaries is negligent or absent during their duty hours.

Expressing concern over the situation described by Dr Shoaib, the Senate House Committee gave recommendation for establishment of a drug testing lab in Islamabad.

The committee has also advised provision of new ambulance service for parliament lodges the quotations for which have already been forwarded to the health ministry. The committee said that they were chalking out a policy whereby parliamentarians will be supplied medicines at their doorstep.

During the committee session, Senator Kuhda Babar of the government allied political party alleged that members of the government were unjustly procuring renovation material for their homes in parliament lodges. “My lodge is just next to the house of a parliamentarian who happens to be a minister. He is being awarded on priority basis for the sake of his seat while my house remains without renovation for the past one-and-a-half years despite chairman senate’s orders in my favour,” he complained.

Meanwhile, officials from capital development authority maintained that they were not subjecting any parliamentarian to prejudice. “We have not supplied anything to the minister’s house and it is possible that he has procured the renovation material from somewhere else,” they said.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 21^st, 2019.