Saqib Ali Haidri,
Muzaffarabad: Civil Society representatives of Muzaffarabad has said that Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) government is “distributing death” among the poor patients who strive for better treatment in State’s hospitals by not establishing a Drug Testing Laboratory (DTL) in the State.
One of the representative of Muzaffarabad Civil Society and active social worker Faisal Jamil told this correspondent here on Sunday that due to improper and lack of health facilities in State’s hospitals, a patient once admitted for any serious disease often discharged in his/her expiry due to incompetent doctors besides substandard medicines.
He said, “there are only two main hospitals in the capital city of AJK having not more than 500 beds for patients collectively while they are handling the whole Muzaffarabad division consist of around 1 million population.”
Moreover, he added that the medicines declared as substandard are still available in AJK due to negligence of incumbent government as we have no any drug testing laboratory in AJK.
AJK have a special status under United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) and administered by Pakistan but rules and laws passed in Federal and provincial assemblies of Pakistan does not befall in the jurisdiction of AJK.
Similarly, if any product declared substandard or banned by any laboratory and Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) have no legal authority to do the same in AJK unless the state government issue any special order in that regard.
However, on the other side, the Drug Testing Laboratory, Punjab, has declared overwhelming number of medicines of various brands, prescribed for various diseases and surgical treatments, substandard after samples were found unfit for human consumption but many of them are still available at different medical stores in Muzaffarabad.
While examining the samples collected from primary, secondary and tertiary care hospitals of Punjab during the period from August 30, 2017 to April 7, 2018, the Drugs Testing Laboratory Punjab has collected samples of wide-ranging medicines used in all medical and surgical treatment procedures only to reach perilous findings of overwhelming number of medicines as substandard.
Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan has cancelled/suspended the registration of 89 drugs of the pharmaceutical companies manufacturing substandard medicines on July 16 2018. Moreover, licenses of 18 drug manufacturers have been cancelled/suspended during the last four years.
Masses in Muzaffarabad demanded AJK government to launch a drug regulatory authority in Azad Kashmir to control and monitor the banned and substandard medicines brought for sale in AJK besides establishing a drug testing laboratory to examine the quality of medicines.
