Acknowledging acute shortage of essential drugs in government hospitals and primary health centres, Health and Family Welfare Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao on Monday said that currently there was “nil stock” of 190 essential drugs of the total 410 essential drugs that the government supplies for free.
He assured that the supply is likely to be streamlined by April 1. He admitted that the government had “failed in its primary responsibility”.
Responding to question from BJP member D.S. Arun, who posed it on behalf of his party colleague Gopinath, the Minister said that of the total drugs that the government purchases for public supply, 410 were “essential drugs” and 322 were “desirable drugs”, and that supply management had been hit due to delay in tendering process.
“The government has asked hospitals to buy drugs and supply it to public from about ₹222 crore funds available. However, there are flaws in that as there is lack of transparency and drugs are being purchased at a higher cost. The Karnataka State Medical Supplies Corporation (KSMSC) needs to be strengthened.” He said that pharmacies have mushroomed around government hospitals since drugs were not available in the hospitals.
Earlier, Mr. Arun said that though the financial year was coming to an end, the tender process was still under way for 2023-2024 financial year. He pointed out that there was issues of coordination as per the KSMSC records, and that the poor were forced to buy medicine from private pharmacies.
In response, the Minister said: “We have failed in our primary responsibility. To ensure that it will not repeat itself annually, the tender period has now been extended from one year to two years. Tendering process will commence months before the end of the current tender term to provide continuity in supply.”
Mr. Rao said that the government was trying to reform the KSMSC as managing directors were changing every three to four months. “KPMG has been roped in to suggest reforms in KSMSC. Since the government does not have information on the number of medical equipment, whether they are working or not or its maintenance, C-DAC has been roped in to help us. We are trying to overhaul the corporation comprehensively. There should be no complaints in the six to seven months,” he said.
