NEW DELHI: After months of disruption in medical supplies across hospitals run by the city government, the supply of drugs and surgical items is likely to be streamlined by the end of October.
Officials said the procurement through the Central Procurement Agency (CPA) is likely to resume in two to three weeks. The move is expected to bring relief to hospitals that are struggling with a severe shortage of essential drugs.
The Delhi government had earlier barred hospitals from purchasing medicines from the open market or the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) portal, directing all procurement to be routed exclusively through the CPA.
However, operational delays in the agency’s functioning stalled the rollout of the system, leaving hospital stores empty and forcing patients to buy medicines from outside.
From Lok Nayak to GB Pant Hospital, store shelves are running bare. In GB Pant, 495 out of 1,057 medicines and surgical items have already run out, hospital sources said.
“Even basic medicines are not available in the store. We had to ask patients to purchase even common antibiotics from outside,” said a senior doctor at Lok Nayak Hospital.
Officials in the Health Department said the bottleneck was being addressed and that procurement through the CPA would begin soon. “The process will start by next week, and the supply will streamline in the following weeks. A uniform and transparent system will ensure timely availability of medicines and eliminate corruption in procurement,” a senior health official said.
The CPA was first set up in 1994 under a BJP government to manage the purchase of medicines and equipment for all government hospitals in Delhi. The GeM portal, an online platform of the central government, was also being used earlier but has now been discontinued for medicine purchases.
Meanwhile, the shortage has sparked a political war between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the BJP. Speaking at a press conference, former health minister and AAP Delhi president Saurabh Bharadwaj claimed that the situation in government hospitals had never been so grim. “Shelves meant for medicines lie empty, surgical equipment and gloves are missing, and administrators have been barred from making even local purchases.”
Responding to the criticism, Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva said the current shortage was the result of “mismanagement by the previous AAP government.
“It was the AAP government that failed to manage diagnostic and X-ray services in hospitals. We are now fixing their mess,” he said.
