Bengal to set up labs to check spurious drugs: Chief Minister

Hence, I have decided on two schemes to set up a drug laboratory and to check spurious drugs, Banerjee said at the state secretariat.A couple of days ago, patients were given medicines originating from Bangladesh at a state-run hospital in Kathi in West Bengals Purba Medinipore district.Later a senior official of the state health department clarified that the medicines were received in June last year from the Government of India through HLL Life Care Limited, a GOI undertaking.

Amid a raging controversy over the central government sending Bangladeshi drugs to a West Bengal hospital for distribution, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said her government has decided to set up a drug laboratory to check spurious drugs.

She claimed that the central government which should be checking spurious drugs had not been doing its duty.

''The number of spurious drugs is increasing in the markets. It was the duty of Delhi (central government) to check it, but they have not been performing their task. Hence, I have decided on two schemes to set up a drug laboratory and to check spurious drugs,'' Banerjee said at the state secretariat.

A couple of days ago, patients were given medicines originating from Bangladesh at a state-run hospital in Kathi in West Bengal's Purba Medinipore district.

Later a senior official of the state health department clarified that ''the medicines were received in June last year from the Government of India through HLL Life Care Limited, a GOI undertaking. The medicines were donated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bangladesh government to GoI. Those medicines were supplied from Central Medical Store (CMS) to Nandigram HD, Howrah and North 24 Parganas, and South 24 Parganas in June''.

Banerjee, who is also the health minister of West Bengal, directed officials to take up timely maintenance of medical machines bought by the state during the Covid pandemic.

''There is insufficient maintenance of machines like BiPAP, concentrators, etc., which we had purchased last year during Covid. I will ask the maintenance committee to look into it,'' she said.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)