THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Health Minister P.K. Sreemathi denied charges of corruption in the procurement of surgical instruments and said the move smacked of a conspiracy to destroy the Kerala Medical Services Corporation Ltd (KMSCL).
The charges were raised by the Congress member V.D. Satheesan under Rule 285 during the discussion and voting on demands for supplementary grants in the Assembly on Tuesday. Five main charges were raised by the Congress leader.
One, the KMSCL selected the Johnson and Johnson company to supply at least 20 surgical items, rejecting the claims of firms that quoted much lower amounts. Two, the KMSCL’s technical committee was packed with greenhorns and its report had been tampered with in at least four cases. Three, the labels on the cover of the items were not scratched before being sent to the technical committee. Four, re-tender of items with the drug codes ranging from 463-470 and 523-527 was not carried out even after the director board of the KMSCL had recommended such a measure. Five, fake GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices), non-conviction and manufacturing and marketing certificates were produced by certain companies during the tender process.
HEALTH MINISTER’S DEFENCE: Sreemathi’s counter was built on the argument that quality mattered more than lower bids. “We cannot purchase a drug or a surgical equipment just because it is low-priced. If the sutures used for post-surgical procedures are of inferior quality, it can even lead to death,” Sreemathi said. The firms that bid low were rejected because their sutures had “bad knot quality”, the Minster said.
She said that KMSCL follows stringent quality procedures. She said that the documents Satheesan possessed were based on just the provisional list put up in the KMSCL website.