The investigation should cover purchase of medicine, equipment, bed allocation, and reimbursement of treatment cost to private hospitals, among others, says committee
The Public Accounts Committee of the State legislature has accused the previous BJP dispensation of failure to handle COVID-19 pandemic and recommended a comprehensive probe by an independent institution into issues such as purchase of medicines and equipment during the pandemic.
In its report that was tabled in the Karnataka Assembly on Monday, the 21-member PAC led by Congress member Ramalinga Reddy has observed that there was mismanagement in handling of COVID-19, including purchase of medicine, equipment and Rapid Antigen Test kits and distribution of ventilators got from PM CARES funds.
No documents
The PAC has stated that the Health Department had failed to furnish documents related to purchase of medicine, equipment, bed allocation in hospitals, reimbursement of treatment cost to private hospitals and expenditure by various departments on pandemic management.
The PAC observed that the Health Department had purchased Ivermectin medicine three times in April and May 2021 though the the WHO had warned against its use in March 2021 itself. The WHO had made it clear that Ivermectin would not be of any help for COVID patients, the PAC pointed out, and described it as “anti-people” and that with “malafide intention.”
Though 1.10 crore Ivermectin tablets had been procured, the Health Department had failed to even provide expenditure details in this regard, the committee pointed out and took exception to the fact that no efforts had been made to return the unused tablets even in the later period.
What T.N. did
The neighbouring Tamil Nadu had decided against using Ivermectin tablets in the wake of advisory by the WHO, the committee noted. Even the remdesivir injections had been brought at higher prices, the PAC observed.
It further observed that the department had incurred additional expense of ₹1.14 crore by purchasing amphotericin medicine for black fungus from a firm which was the second lowest bidder rather than procuring from the lowest bidder.
It also observed that the Health Department had maintained that all the government hospitals in Bengaluru had adequate number of ventilators and in turn provided them to the private hospitals at a time when there was huge number of deaths due to lack of ventilators and beds.
The PAC has found fault with the Health Department in purchase of various equipment, including UPS and observed that they had been overpriced compared with the prices in different States.
Health Dept. has understated deaths by 1.2 lakh in documents: PAC
The Public Accounts Committee of Karnataka legislature has said that the Health and Family Welfare Department officials have committed “a serious crime” by understating the deaths due to COVID-19.
Pointing out that there were 1,57,914 more deaths from January to July in 2020 when compared with normal deaths in the previous year, the PAC says contrary to this, the Health Department officials had maintained that there were only 37,206 deaths due to COVID-19 during this period. “This would mean that the officials concerned had reduced the COVID deaths by 1,20,708,” the PAC observed and recommended that the families of these deceased persons too should get compensation on humanitarian grounds.
It also observed that the number of deaths in Bengaluru city was higher than other metropolitan cities. The PAC blamed the delay in detection of COVID, delay in furnishing test report, lacunae in treatment system and shortage of medicine as well as oxygen for the huge number of deaths due to COVID-19.
