Medicines unavailable at state-run health facilities across Karnataka due to red tapism

Have you found yourself without medicines for free or at subsidized prices at government-run health institutions citing unavailability of the medicines? This is not a problem here alone, but a problem across the state.

The issue of unavailability of certain medicines at state-government-run health institutions will be addressed soon. Currently, there is short supply of medicines at these medical institutions due to red tapism within the state’s health department.

Certain medicines are not available at these institutions owing to health department’s failure to procure medicines to be supplied to patients at all the government-run medical institutions across Karnataka.

The cause for this issue is being attributed to backlogs and delay in clearing payments against medicine procurement bills and lack of coordination and indecisiveness within the health department.

According to Karnataka State Medical Supplies Corporation Limited’s (KSMSCL) managing director, Chidananda S Vatare, all the pending bills will be cleared by next month and all issues related to procurement of medicines will be sorted out in a few days.

According to a survey report by Sarvatrika Arogya Andolana Karnataka (SAAK), found that there was severe shortage of free medicines at government-run medical facilities.

The survey found that patients were forced to buy medicines from elsewhere by paying money on their own. The survey was conducted in 11 districts across Karnataka in July, and all the patients interviewed had to buy medicines on their own and on an average each patient spent around Rs 400 to buy the medicines from elsewhere.