SHILLONG: Professor and Head of Department, Cardiology department in NEIGRIHMS, Animesh Mishra said the department was open to enquiry and had also written a letter to concerned authorities to constitute either an internal or external enquiry.
He asserted that through the NEIGRIHMS PRO KK Pandita, the image of the Cardiology department had been tarnished and it was difficult to make interactions with patients.
He said that there were several accusations made in one breath and the authenticity of the information given the media was questionable.
“In NEIGRIHMS, till yesterday, there was not a single stent being made available inside the AMRIT Pharmacy and inside the Hospital pharmacy. In entire Meghalaya, there is only one source of procurement of stents which is outside the hospital. Stents are available only with private vendord,” he said.
Responding to accusations on the prices of stents, he pointed to the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) and maintained that the vendor was following the guidelines proposed by the NPPA which broadly say that no stents price should exceed Rs 30,000.
He said that the Cardio doctors become aware of the prices only when the patients buy and bring it to the department. “Since we are signing the reimbursement papers, we have full confidence that not a single patient has been operated violating the NPPA guidelines,” he said.
He claimed that there had been no violation of the guidelines as far as the department of Cardiology in NEIGRIHMS was concerned.
Following the confiscation of stents by the NEIGRIHMS director, DM Thappa bought from Sanjo Medical on April 30, Mishra said as per the NPPA guidelines that when any supply of stents had to be stopped, it had to be intimated 6 months before.
Stating that patients are not supposed to suffer due to the shortage of the supply of stents, he said there had to be a mechanism to provide stents from other sources since the stents were confiscated.
Plea for onsite inventory
According to Mishra, there is a need for onsite inventory in the department and said that the department had made several requests to the institute to provide inventory.
Faced with the present situation of the unavailability of devices, the department of Cardiology is not operating any patients although the doctors are attending the OPD, IPD, emergency patients, ICCU, Wards and ECHO lab.
Asked, he said not less than 30 patients were affected and the doctors could not go ahead with operations due to the unavailability of operation devices.
Patients suffer
Jasper Pyrtuh, a local resident of Moolang from East Jaintia Hills whose 76-year-old grandmother needs a stent is still confined in the ICCU. Another Rinku Roy from Silchar said his 38 years old brother required a pacemaker.