PUNE, Nov 11: An acute crunch of medicines has hit the hospitals run by the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC), including the Yeshwantrao Chavan Memorial Hospital, due to the delay in the process of inviting tenders.The medicines which should have been bought at the beginning of the financial year in April have not yet been provided to the civic hospitals. The PCMC has a budget of Rs one crore for the purchase of medicines.Senior medical officer K Nagkumar while admitting that there was a shortage of medicines maintained that essential drugs were still available at the hospitals. There have been so many variety of drugs that it is impossible to make all of them available, he said.The tenders have already been invited and the process of scrutiny is in progress, he said. There are nearly 750 drugs to be purchased while the number of offers that have come are about 75. The process of finalisation of tenders would be completed within the next 15 days, he claimed.Municipal commissioner B I Nagrale has issued directives to the drugs purchase committee to complete the process of finalisation of tenders as early as possible.The medical authorities are of the opinion that the civic hospitals can provide only better services, but not all the medicines. The budget for the annual purchase of medicines is also very small, they added. The demand of medicines is much more for which a minimum budgetary allocation of Rs 3.5 crore is essential, the authorities said. The heads of the various hospitals have already been given permission to purchase emergency medicines as and when required. The medical superintendent of the YCMH has been given the rights to purchase medicines worth Rs 50,000 while heads of other hospitals can purchase medicines worth Rs 25,000.Meanwhile, PCMC opposition leader in a memorandum submitted to the commissioner said that the patients have been facing hardships due to the unavailability of medicines.
