Citing the government audit report, the Government Medical Officers’ Association claims that many serious frauds are taking place due to the lack of medicine and resorting to emergency purchases. .
Haritha Aluthage, secretary of theL Government Medical Officers Association, points out that due to emergency purchases, a large number of transactions such as the purchase of a 100 rupee pill for 1000 rupees have been identified.
He says that the background for making such urgent purchases is due to the reduction of the amount of 80 billion rupees spent per year for the purchase of medicines in this year.
According to the audit report, 20 billion rupees should be spent for the first quarter of this year, but only 12 billion rupees have been spent.
The Government Medical Officers Association also says that due to irregularities in emergency purchases, there is currently an acute shortage of medicines and surgical materials in hospitals.
Dr. Aluthage says that although 1146 types of drugs are needed for hospitals, there is an acute shortage of 311 types of drugs in the hospitals and the drugs that are in short supply include antibiotics, pain relievers, anesthetics and other drugs.
And the audit reports indicate that there are almost 5000 out of 8648 surgical materials, a shortage of 850 out of 3900 laboratory materials and 19 out of 33 X-ray items, the Association of Government Medical Officers states.