Alleged irregularities in medical supplies: Six Government hospitals under scanner of Vigilance department

New Delhi: The Vigilance Department is presently investigating the purchase committees of six state-run government hospitals. The committees are being scrutinized for their alleged procurement of substandard medical supplies and disposable items used in the treatment of patients.

The six state-run hospitals include Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital, Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital, Lok Nayak Hospital, Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital, Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital and Janakpuri Super Speciality Hospital.

These government hospitals have been flagged by the vigilance department for their procurement of substandard medical supplies, which did not meet the prescribed quality standards, leading to irregularities.  

The development comes in the backdrop of the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) conducting raids at LNJP Hospital a few days ago, uncovering allegations of the hospital's involvement in the distribution of substandard drugs and medical equipment. Subsequently, the equipment was seized. 

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Medical Dialogues team had reported about this incident where the raid was conducted by the ACB days after the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) directed a CBI probe into the alleged procurement and supply of spurious and non-standard drugs in government hospitals and mohalla clinics in the national capital, the Delhi government said that all the sub-standard items were brought from the Central government's portal GeM (Government e-Marketplace).

According to TNIE, It was found that these six government hospitals were using substandard medical supplies and disposable items. Therefore, the purchase committee of the mentioned hospitals are under the radar of the vigilance department. 

These committees headed by the Medical Superintendent/ Medical Director and comprise doctors, store officers and Nursing Superintendents, among others, will be summoned for questioning regarding the issue soon. 

Commenting on the matter, a senior officer of the department informed the Daily, “We will inquire with them to find out the scope of irregularities which may have been done to benefit some manufacturers. It’s a case of corruption."

An FIR was registered on a complaint from the deputy secretary (vigilance) of the Delhi Health and Family Welfare Department under section 7A (offence relating to public servant being bribed for doing public duty improperly) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, Section 120 B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC and Section 18 of the Drugs and Cosmetic Act (dealing with prohibition of manufacture and sale of certain drugs and cosmetics).

Medical and surgical equipment supplied by 13 different suppliers were found to have failed the standard quality in lab tests, according to the FIR. Following this, these 13 companies have been recommended to be blacklisted. 

According to the FIR, the health department formed a team in August 2023 to monitor activities in hospitals. Samples of cotton bandages, infusion sets, absorbent cotton and latex examination gloves collected from a hospital failed the quality tests at government-authorised laboratories. This prompted the department to widen its probe where it found similar irregularities in six hospitals.

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