Wide-scale probes launched into theft of govt’s medicines

Federal and provincial investigation agencies have launched joint and separate investigations into the theft of medicines from public hospitals in Sindh a day after the National Task Force against Spurious Drugs of the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) recovered a huge quantity of medicines during raids on shops and warehouses in the Katchi Gali medicine market and Hussainabad areas of Karachi, officials said on Tuesday.

The administrations of the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) and Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital Karachi have also initiated internal inquiries after DRAP officials claimed that medicines stolen from these health facilities were seized during raids, which were clearly stamped ‘Sindh government property’ and ‘NICVD’, but argued that the theft of medicines from their health facilities was not possible.

The provincial health department also decided to launch a criminal investigation into the scandal, and the provincial health secretary was asked to approach the Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) for a probe at the departmental level to expose the elements depriving the people of free medicines.

“Sindh Health Minister Dr Azra Pechuho has taken this issue very seriously and immediately directed the Sindh secretary health to request the Anti- Corruption Establishment (ACE) to probe into this matter. He has also been asked to initiate a departmental inquiry into this scam,” said Muhammad Qasim Soomro, parliamentary secretary on health of Sindh, while talking to The News on Tuesday.

He said the theft of medicines from the public health facilities was a serious crime and they had decided not to spare anybody involved in it. “We are spending billions of rupees for the provision of medicines to needy and deserving people, but some antisocial elements are involved in stealing them and depriving the poor of this facility, which is not acceptable.”

To a query, Soomro said he believed that if any federal agency was conducting the probe into this issue and wanted to bring the culprits to justice, the provincial health department should have no objection and it should cooperate with them, but nobody had yet approached the health department in this regard.

The NICVD and CHK managements formed inquiry committees on Tuesday to probe into the alleged theft of medicines from their drug stores, but they said that due to strict monitoring and a system of surveillance, the theft of medicines from their systems was not possible.

“I have recently assumed charge of the CHK and taken measures to stop all kinds of pilferages. I have constituted an inquiry committee comprising two senior assistant medical superintendants and another official to probe into theft reports and present its report within a week,” Dr Akram Sultan, medical superintendent of the CHK, told The News.

Announcing ab inquiry into the allegations, officials at the NICVD said the stamp found on the recovered medicines was not the one they used to mark their medicines, but added that their committee would check the batch numbers and invoices to ascertain if those medicines belonged to the NICVD or not.

In the meantime, officials in the federal investigation agency said they had also launched an inquiry, saying they were going to involve the health officials as well as the drug control administration of Sindh, including the drug inspectors, for their alleged role in flooding the markets in Karachi and other cities of Sindh with counterfeit, spurious, unregistered and smuggled medicines.

“A widespread investigation has been initiated against the officials of the provincial drug control administration, especially provincial drug inspectors, as evidences have been received against them for their role in patronising the business of counterfeit, spurious, unregistered and smuggled medicines. These people are playing with the lives of people and cannot be allowed to use their influence to promote illegal drugs,” an official of the agency said.