THE seizure of huge quantity of ‘Not-for-Sale’ marked government hospital medicines worth over Tk two lakh and arrest of a person involved with the theft from a village in Dimla Upazila last Wednesday exposes once again how dishonest hospital employees are running the illegal trade. It shows they are making huge money regularly removing such medicine from government hospitals and rural health complexes and selling outside making huge fortune.
We know as the business continues patients remained routinely deprived of even emergency medicine in public hospitals such as pain killer medicine, bandage materials and injection syringe free of cost. They have to buy such items from outside shops for receiving treatment. Lifting medicine from hospitals and public health facilities is a criminal offence and punishable by law. But very seldom we hear such criminals have been tried and punished. They get bail bribing the legal process and using political influence.
In the said case the culprit is a contractual employee of Dimla Health Complex and was found in possession of over 20,330 pieces of tablets, capsules, saline, injection syringe and syrups. In fact it is a tip on the iceberg of the total number of medicines smuggled every year from government run hospitals. One point is clear – without active involvement of concerned employees and a section of physicians it is almost impossible to run such lifting and selling medicines to outsiders. The medicines not only meant for first aid and treating other common diseases, the list also covers complementary drugs that pharmaceutical companies provide physicians as samples and signed not for sale.
We know that organised gangs are running the lifting but the loopholes can be plugged if the hospitals strictly monitor and maintain inventories of medicine for free distribution. The fact is that corruption in public hospitals and stealing of medicines and grabbing other funds are so big along with other procurement businesses controlled by powerful syndicates that no quick remedial measures are evidently possible.
The Health Ministry itself is floating in a sea of corruption where misuse of resources is everywhere to become a systemic disease that many believe needs surgery at political level but since most such irregularities are not unknown to government leaders resorted to by people linked to the ruling party, the system is going unchecked.
It is difficult to check the system particularly because few people take critical view of such medicine for lack of awareness. But we say the system must be destroyed to protect interest of common people, particularly the poor who go to public hospitals for treatment. Business with free of cost drugs not acceptable at all.
We know as the business continues patients remained routinely deprived of even emergency medicine in public hospitals such as pain killer medicine, bandage materials and injection syringe free of cost. They have to buy such items from outside shops for receiving treatment. Lifting medicine from hospitals and public health facilities is a criminal offence and punishable by law. But very seldom we hear such criminals have been tried and punished. They get bail bribing the legal process and using political influence.
In the said case the culprit is a contractual employee of Dimla Health Complex and was found in possession of over 20,330 pieces of tablets, capsules, saline, injection syringe and syrups. In fact it is a tip on the iceberg of the total number of medicines smuggled every year from government run hospitals. One point is clear – without active involvement of concerned employees and a section of physicians it is almost impossible to run such lifting and selling medicines to outsiders. The medicines not only meant for first aid and treating other common diseases, the list also covers complementary drugs that pharmaceutical companies provide physicians as samples and signed not for sale.
We know that organised gangs are running the lifting but the loopholes can be plugged if the hospitals strictly monitor and maintain inventories of medicine for free distribution. The fact is that corruption in public hospitals and stealing of medicines and grabbing other funds are so big along with other procurement businesses controlled by powerful syndicates that no quick remedial measures are evidently possible.
The Health Ministry itself is floating in a sea of corruption where misuse of resources is everywhere to become a systemic disease that many believe needs surgery at political level but since most such irregularities are not unknown to government leaders resorted to by people linked to the ruling party, the system is going unchecked.
It is difficult to check the system particularly because few people take critical view of such medicine for lack of awareness. But we say the system must be destroyed to protect interest of common people, particularly the poor who go to public hospitals for treatment. Business with free of cost drugs not acceptable at all.
