Hyderabad: The quality of drugs has worsened, senior government doctors maintain, as the Telangana State Medical Infrastructure Development Corporation has failed to provide good quality of drugs to government hospitals. Doctors state that they have to face the anger of patient’s relatives and attendants which is adding to a lot of pressure on them. Doctors state that their skills are being questioned when the cases fail but no one is blaming the quality of medicines procured by the corporation.
The corporation has been procuring medicines and equipments for all government hospitals, area hospitals and public health centres of the state. A senior government doctor, on condition of anonymity, said, “We are still procuring base-line medicines for the hospitals when there are higher versions and also second generation of antibiotics available. There must be independent qualified pharmacists who can judge the quality, efficacy and strength of medicine. Presently, the pharmacists are only doing the job of registration, filling the indent and supplying to various hospitals.
Their actual work of checking the quality of the medicine is not being done.” Quality testing of drugs is a major demand of the Telananga Government Doctor’s Association who state that in the recent strike notice to the state government they pointed out the sub-standard quality of drugs. A senior government doctor said, “We were hoping that the functioning of the corporation will improve after the formation of the new state but it has only worsened. The basic works of quality testing, procuring and supplying the medicines on time is not being carried out. It is important that the procurement of medicines must be entrusted to hospital superintendent.”
The hospital administration claims that general equipments like cautery machines, operation tables, patient’s cots and boyles machine for anesthesia are procured and dumped in the hospitals even if not needed. A senior administrator said, “These are bought in bulk and there is often a surplus but there is no mechanism to explain these facts to the corporation.” The hospitals want that the medicines and essential equipments for diagnostics must be procured by the hospital so that they can bring according to their specifications.
