Telangana Government Hospitals in shortage of life-saving drugs
Since the beginning of the year, the State government and even the ESI Directorate, which governs ESI Hospitals in hyderabad, have owed TCHSA members a whopping Rs 400 crore in unpaid invoices. With several submissions made to the health department and other authorities for speedy clearing of pending invoices failing to elicit a response, the TCHSA, which has over 1500 members, has ceased selling pharmaceuticals to government and ESI hospitals for the last few weeks.
During a media encounter in march of this year, TCHSA officials, including President S Ramchand, cautioned that if authorities continued to postpone the release of pending invoices, they would be unable to sustain their business model. TCHSA members stated on friday that the case has now been closed. "For the last two months, we have been asking state government officials and ESI officials to resolve the outstanding debts. So yet, nobody has offered us any assurances. "We are unable to supply life-saving drugs," claimed Girish Bhatt, a senior pharma distributor from Hyderabad.
While TCHSA's supply of medicines to hospitals has been halted, senior officials at telangana Medical services and Infrastructure Development Corporation (TGMSIDC) said that individual State-run tertiary hospitals have enough buffer stock of medicines to last at least the next three to four months.
"We do have access to funds with Hospital Development Society (HDS) that fall directly under the jurisdiction of Superintendent who can independently procure medicines from other available sources," said authorities in the health sector.