Desi dispensaries in a shambles
NEWDELHI: While the government is promoting Ayush system of medicine, Delhi failed miserably in providing treatment to its people, shows the Comptroller and Auditor General of India’s (CAG) audit of the state government’s directorate of Ayush.
Ayush is an umbrella term for various Indian systems of medicine — Ayurvedic, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy.
Of 103 homoeopathic dispensaries, only 24 were having full complement of staff to ensure proper patient care. As many as 16 Ayurvedic dispensaries were operating from two-room structures and five from one room against the requirement of three rooms.
There was significant shortage of medical staff throughout 2012-17 in all the dispensaries, and against a sanctioned strength of 163 doctors and 155 pharmacists, 28 posts of doctors and 61 posts of pharmacists were vacant as of March 2017, said the audit report tabled in the Delhi Assembly by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Tuesday.
Ayurvedic and Unani dispensaries were provided with only 40% of essential medicines; and 43% medicines were not available in homoeopathic dispensaries during the period of audit.
The central auditor also questioned the quality of drugs, with the report saying the drug con- troller did not have an effective system to identify the manufacturing units to bring them within their licencing regime.
“They had not conducted any surveys during five years covered in audit to identify units manufacturing Ayurvedic and Unani medicine without a valid licence,” says the report.
Drug shortage, lack of emergency services, malfunctioning essential diagnostic equipment, defunct operation theatres, etc, was a common problem at all hospitals and dispensaries, which practically rendered these places not fit to provide adequate treatment.
BLOOD BANKS
The report also questions the functioning of blood banks in Delhi. Of the 68 banks, 32 were operating without valid licences, primarily due to delay in processing of their renewal.
The CAG found several deficiencies in management of blood banks. Thirty-two banks were not updating authentic information pertaining to blood/blood components.
Voluntary blood collection declined and no bank was performing nucleic acid testing (NAT) screening for blood donations to reduce the risk of transfusion transmitted infections in the recipients.
The audit report mentioned that the matter had been referred to state government but there was no response.