Shillong, July 5: Health Minister Ampareen Lyngdoh is annoyed over lack of procedure in procurement and disposal of medicines.
She has already ordered a departmental inquiry into the dumping of lakhs of expired medicines at Marten.
She assured that necessary action would be taken to ensure that such instances are not repeated in the department.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Ampareen said, “I have asked for a departmental inquiry into this matter. Once we have the inquiry report ready then I will again share with the public on the action to be taken and hopefully we will set things right once and for all”.
“We are going to get on to the job. We have to take necessary actions. We have to communicate very clearly to officials in the department that you are not permitted to do these things for various reasons,” she said.
According to her, this is not the first time something like this where medicines have expired and disposed of has happened. Such matters are recurring again and again.
It was on June 29 that lakhs of expired medicines amounting to crores of rupees were dumped at Marten dumping ground.
Lyngdoh questioned as to how people got access to the landfill of the municipal board at Marten. Where are any indents made? Who allowed this vehicle passage? Who disposed of these medicines?
“You cannot just walk into the landfill and dispose of whatever you want at your whims and fancies as there are procedures. If these procedures were adhered to likely we would have averted this error. This is an error which we cannot allow to reccur and this I am taking care of whether or not it will be independent inquiry or whether or not certain medicines for certain groups of individuals were denied I don’t know,” she said.
“Right now I just received a preliminary report from the level of the DHS. This will be sent to the bureaucrats to study, to understand and to further inquire because it is not a question of blame game, we don’t want this to happen ever again.”
“Once the information is at our disposal then we will decide what action to be taken next”, she said.
The minister said she had asked the MD of the National Health Mission (NHM) to immediately form a committee in this regard.
“One cannot imagine that medicines are lifted from the godown, nobody knows who lifted them and when it was lifted. Municipal board is supposed to be the authority that actually is authorised to dispose of expired medicines provided you get your clearance from all the other authorities”, she added.
MACC questions Ampareen
Earlier in the day, president of Meghalaya Awaken Concerned Citizens( MACC) Banshai Marbaniang met the health minister and demanded action against those involved in dumping expired medicines.
He said a detailed report on the reasons why the drug was thrown away without being used or handed to the public, especially patients, must be provided to the state government by the health officials.
