Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Sreemathy refutes allegations

Thiruvananthapuram:

The Kerala Medical Services Corporation Limited (KMSCL) has not done anything in contravention of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act and Rules, nor has it procured and supplied sub-standard drugs to hospitals as has been alleged in some quarters, Health Minister P.K. Sreemathy has said.

At a press conference here on Thursday, Ms. Sreemathy said the setting up of the Corporation and thus ensuring a streamlined and efficient drug procurement and distribution system was one of the major achievements in the health sector. The State made the changeover from the drug purchasing system of Central Purchase Committee to that of the Corporation only this year and some teething troubles were to be expected. But it was unfair to accuse the Corporation of supplying substandard drugs when stringent quality control measures were being followed by it, she said.

The KMSCL has a quality control wing which collects samples from every batch of drugs and supplies and tests each item in laboratories (11 of these) empanelled by the Corporation, before supplying it to hospitals. Till now, 3,900 samples have been tested, out of which 101 were found to be “not of standard quality.” When these 101 samples were re-tested at the Drugs Testing Laboratory of the State Drugs Control Department, 79 samples were cleared. Only 22 samples of eight drugs were found to be “not of standard quality.”

The 79 samples that were labelled “not of standard quality” were those that did not have uniformity of content, weight, dissolution, assay etc., and improper labelling. These were definitely not sub-standard drugs which could have caused potential harm, he added.

When a sample fails the quality test, the supplier is asked to take back the batch and if two batches of the same drug fail the test, the item is blacklisted.

Ms. Sreemathy said the practice of testing every batch of drugs was followed only in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Those accusing the Corporation of supplying poor quality drugs should remember that the drugs supplied in private hospitals or bought from the market did not undergo this kind of rigorous quality testing.

Though the Corporation had decided that the drugs would be supplied only after quality testing, it could not adhere to this condition as the drugs in the last quarter of the previous year’s supply through Central Purchase Committee failed to arrive on time.

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