The Punjab chief minister’s inquiry committee on the issue of 8,000 Magnetic Resonance Imagine (MRI) expired injections in Jinnah Hospital is likely to submit its final report within two or three days, while the pharmaceutical company which delivered the objectionable injections was due to replace all expired injections on May 18.
The Omniscan injection, one of the five Gadolinium-based injections, is used during MRI with contrast. Jinnah Hospital administration acquired around 8,000 injections each for Rs 1,800 for poor patients visiting the health facility for MRI investigation. The Punjab CM ordered to conduct an inquiry headed by the CDC director. The inquiry committee not only visited the hospital’s radiology department but also conducted interviews of different officials and workers and completed its work on Tuesday. The committee had also investigated that why a major chunk of the drug was not given to patients within the designated period and resultantly why 5,000 injections had expired?
Country Head of General Electronics, Muhammad Ali, the manufacturer of Omniscan injection told Pakistan Today that the company was not responsible for expiry of the injection but the expired injections would be replaced today because the company had signed a contract in which they were bound to replace it. Allama Iqbal Medical College Principal Prof. Dr Javed Akram told Pakistan Today that the Jinnah Hospital administration decided to black list the company but changed its mind after surety of the pharmaceutical company to change the expired injections with new ones. He said that the inquiry committee will trace out the responsible involved in purchase of expired or near expired injections and then fix responsibility against them.
Jinnah Hospital Medical Superintendent Dr Afzal Shaheen said that the inquiry committee had completed interviews of different people, including the hospital administration, officials of the radiology department and other workers. Young Doctors’ Association Punjab (YDAP) office-bearers Dr Rana Sohail, Dr Salman Kazmi, Dr Talha Sherwani and Dr Khuda Bakhsh said that the Jinnah Hospital MS and Chief Executive Dr Javed Akram were responsible for the negligence, which led to the loss of hundreds of thousands of rupees from public funds.
They said that around 1,900 expensive MRI injections expired in Jinnah Hospital’s stores while poor patients were being forced to buy these injections from the market. They demanded the Punjab CM take action against all those responsible for loss of public money.
