Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Drug inspectors raided a medical store on Tuesday evening and recovered medicines worth millions of rupees that were stolen from the stores of government hospitals, a well informed source told the Daily Times. The inspectors raided Eman Medical Store and recovered the stolen medicines. The medical store is situated in G-8 Markaz of the federal capital.

The government functionaries were informed that some medical stores located in the posh areas of the capital were selling prohibited medicines and on the tip off, the drug inspector with security personnel raided the identified medical stores.

The owners of the medical store and salesmen have been taken into custody and legal proceeding against the culprits was being launched, the source said.

The federal government has been allocating millions of rupees of funds for the purchase of medicines for the poor but the black sheep in the hospital administration sold these medicines to the medical stores on cheap rates.

The menace of medicine theft from the hospital is not new but the government has failed to evolve any strategy to tackle this challenge, the source said.

The source also said that over a dozen senior officers and lower staff from the Polyclinic Hospital have been facing inquiry about the medicine theft but the senior officer has failed to identify the responsible culprits and no one has been punished on charges of medicine theft.

The source said that the dispensary at the parliament was a hub of medicine theft and on the directions of Speaker National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq In Charge, Dr, Durdana Kazmi was also suspended on the allegation of corruption.

Due to the theft, 25 differnt types of medicine are missing from the store of Polyclinic and the poor patients are not being provided life saving medicines. The source added that drug inspectors issued a final warning to Doctors Pharmacy at G,8 Markaz for not maintaining cooling within the store.

Drug Inspector Sardar Bashir confirmed that raids on the medical stores were conducted and medicines that were stolen from government hospitals recovered.

He said we have succeeded in recovering medicines manufactured by a multi-national company Abbott and added that during further investigation it observed that the government stamp on the medicine pack was deleted.

He said the government had decided to launch a crackdown against the medical stores across the country which are notorious and become the hub of government owned medicines.

He also told that law would take its own course against all those people who were busy in this trade and these people would be treated mercilessly.