1. Home
2. Front Page

Hospitals give away spurious medicines to patients

KT NEWS SERVICE. Dated: 4/5/2013 12:36:46 AM

FIR lodged against company

SRINAGAR, Apr 4: The state government has been providing sub-standard medicines to poor patients undergoing treatment in its hospitals.
A national news channel, Headlines Today, said it has obtained documents that reveal that the Omar Abdullah government has made available thousands of fake Amoxicillin tablets to its hospitals.
The documents available with Headlines Today suggest that the drug controller had seized around 8,000 tablets that were found to be sub-standard after being tested in a state laboratory. However, the government still continued to supply the medicine to patients in its various hospitals in November 2012.
The revelations raise question mark on the supply-chain mechanism adopted by the government. The reports of drug controller and the laboratory suggest that the drug named "Maximizin 625", which was supplied to patients, had "zero quantity of the real salt". It was, therefore, declared of sub-standard quality.
Deputy Drug Controller Nazir Ahmed Wani said, "We have tested the sample and the report suggests that it is substandard medicine which was supplied to government hospitals. We are seizing the medicine."
Meanwhile, Drug Control Department of Kashmir today seized hauls of sub standard medical supply in various government hospitals which were being distributed among patients free of cost. Deputy Drug Controller Kashmir Nazir Ahmad while cautioning patients against the use of Himachal based company’s product Maximizen tablets told KNS that the drug was found sub standard and has been seized from various hospitals. “We had been receiving complaints about the supply of sub standard drugs in government hospitals, so we constituted a team headed by Dr. Sameer Sajad,” Ahmad told KNS. He added, “We have seized at least 8,500 sub-standard tablets from various hospitals during last three days.”
According to Deputy Drug Controller, the antibiotic tablets Maximizen has been manufactured by a Himachal based Company and marketed by a Bombay Based company. However, the Medical department has received the consignment from the dealers Life Line Pharma Co. after the drug was passed for use in hospitals by the department’s purchasing committee of Jammu Province. According to deputy drug controller, as per the norms the Maximizen tablet should have 500 mg. of Amoxicillin ad 125 mg. of calvulanate substances, however, shockingly as per the officers it does not contain even a single percent of Amoxicillin.
Meanwhile, an official spokesman said acting on the report of laboratory about the antibiotic drug Maximizane 625 milligrams, found containing zero milligrams of Amoxicillin instead of 500 milligrams as claimed by the company, being spurious, Minister for Medical Education, Taj Mohi-ud-Din has taken stern view of the matter issuing strict instructions to the concerned to investigate the issue.
In this regard, the Principal Government Medical College, Jammu and Medical Superintendent, Lal Ded Hospital, Srinagar have lodged FIR against the responsible drug company. Besides, the Principal Government College, Srinagar would lodge the FIR against the company after getting a formal copy of the report.
Timely detection of these spurious drugs have saved many lives which could have endangered otherwise as these medicines are generally used for post-operative care.