Maharashtra to set up corporation to procure medicines for govt hospitals

(Representative image)

As the delay in procurement of medicines and medical equipment by the state-owned Haffkine Biopharmaceutical Corporation is creating shortages at government hospitals, the Maharashtra government has said it is planning to set up a new corporation for the procurement.

Medical Education Minister Girish Mahajan gave the information in the state Legislative Council on Tuesday while replying to a calling attention motion by Bharatiya Janata Party's Pravin Datke.

"The Haffkine Corporation did not utilise Rs 650 crore out of the budgetary allocation Rs 1,500 crore this year. As a result, many government hospitals are running out of medicines and equipment," the minister said.

To tide over the situation, the government has authorised hospitals to spend 30 per cent of their budget on the purchase of medicines and equipment against the usual 10 per cent allocation, Mahajan said.

He also underlined the problems of human resource crunch at Haffkine and said its chairman was transferred 11 times in the past three years.

A total of 24 permanent and 109 contractual employees are working at the Haffkine Corporation, he stated.

Earlier, Datke said government hospitals are facing a serious shortage of medicines and equipment.

The Mayo Hospital in Nagpur is running short of medicines, surgical equipment, X-ray and pathology kits, and poor patients are being asked to purchase these kits from medical shops, he claimed.