PHC moved to ensure life-saving drugs availability at hospitals

PESHAWAR: A citizen has moved the Peshawar High Court (PHC) to seek direction for the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI)-led provincial government to ensure availability of life-saving drugs at the public sector hospitals and implement its policy of supplying medicines to the poor patients free of cost.

Waqas Hassan, a resident of Peshawar, filed the petition in the interest of public at large through his lawyer Aminur Rehman Yousafzai.The petitioner prayed the court to direct the PTI government to honour its policy of supplying medicines to the poor patients free of cost and put a halt to illegal practice of receiving kickbacks from laboratories, and ultrasounds and X-rays clinics.

The petitioner stated that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on February 26 last year invited bids for purchase and supply of medicines for the public hospitals. He said 229 firms submitted the bids and after due process 116 of them were pre-qualified for the year 2015-2016. The petition stated that the government fixed November 17, 2015 for opening of tenders.

However, it said the entire scenario changed after a notification was issued on November 3, 2015 by the Establishment Department on the directives of the KP government to transfer the administrative secretary of Health department. It noted that the new secretary health annulled the entire process of purchase and supply of medicines.

In the new process, it stated that the government invited applications from the firms that couldn’t qualify in the previous bidding process. The previous bidding process, it pointed out was filtered by the technical and evaluation committee and selection and purchase committee headed by additional secretary health and secretary health.

It was stated that under the law the jurisdiction of the secretary health comes to an end when final approval is granted and the sole authority to take decision subsequently under the law is Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Public Procurement Regularity Authority (KPPPRA).

It said that though the KPPPRA director general advised the director general and secretary health to proceed with the case in conformity with the relevant law and rules, the new secretary health in a bid to favour his blue-eyed overlooked the advice.

The petitioner prayed the court to declare all the illegal acts in the bidding process for the purchase of medicines void and direct the health department to ensure availability of life-saving drugs in the government hospitals without further delay.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government through chief secretary, secretary and director general health department, managing director KPPPRA and director general National Accountability Bureau Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were made parties to the petition.