A controversy is raging in Kashmir over the supply of spurious drugs to hospitals as doctors and civil society have accused the Government of playing with the lives of common people. The authorities have initiated investigations into the multi-layered scandal but the probe findings are not revealed.
On Monday, Doctors Association of Kashmir president Dr Nisarul Hassan compared the supply of spurious drugs to Kashmir hospitals with a silent genocide. “If the Government wants to kill Kashmiris, they should kill them with bullets but not with spurious drugs,” Hassan said at a Press conference.
The drug scandal came to fore when laboratory tests revealed that antibiotic Maximizin-625, prescribed for post-operative care of patients, was not containing even an iota of amoxicillin, although it has to contain 500 milligrams of it.
Worse, two lakh tablets of the spurious drug manufactured by a Himachal Pradesh based pharmaceutical company was supplied to the hospitals.
Even as the authorities have registered case and begun investigations, Director Health Services Kashmir Dr Salimur Rahman played down the issue saying that it was not a big deal to find on spurious drug amid 450 drugs supplied in the government-run hospitals.
President J&K Consumer’s Commission Justice (retd) Bashir A Kirmani demanded impartial probe into the scandal and described Rahman’s explanation as “illogical”. He said supply of spurious drugs is directly concerned with the lives of common people and the issue cannot be brushed aside.
Interestingly, the intravenous drug was found to be spurious in 2011 but the analytic report was kept under wraps. Hassan said that the injection was found to be containing particulate matter. “Any particles entering into human body through veins can kill a person. This shows how many deaths might have occurred in Kashmir hospitals due to this drug,” he said.
Hassan said that a mafia was working behind the supply of these superiors drugs to the valley hospitals and said that Government has been maintaining a “criminal silence” over the issue.