No viable mechanism to control the stents' prices is available at the moment, while provincial health departments are directed to initiate action against doctors and hospitals involved in placing substandard stents in heart patients. Chief Executive Officer of Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan, Muhammad Aslam informed this to the Senate Standing Committee on National Health Services, Regulation and Co-ordination.
Meeting of the committee was held here in the Parliament House on Friday chaired by Senator Sajjad Hussain Turi, wherein the issue of substandard stents and problems faced by National Institute of Health were discussed.
Muhammad Aslam informed the committee members that the DRAP has registered 55 stents so far while requests for the registration of another 50 stents have been pending due to some lacunae in their applications. He also admitted that some patients were inserted with substandard, unregistered and expired stents, but it is responsibility of the provincial governments to initiate action against the culprits. The list of registered stents is also available on the DRAP's website, he said, adding that no mechanism for price control of the stents is available in the country.
"The stents come in the category of medical devices and their prices have not been controlled since 2011," he said adding, "The DRAP is working on formulation of a pricing policy for stents in cooperation with all relevant stakeholders and organisations."
Mian Ateeq Sheikh, a member of the committee said that the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council should devise a mechanism for the pricing of stents and take action against the violators.
To it, Secretary Health Muhammad Ayub Sheikh said the PMDC could initiate action against culprits only if the people register their complaints with it. The executive director National Institute of Health informed the committee members that around 800 patients visit the facility daily, but machines in the institute are 30 years old and other necessary facilities are also not enough to deal with increasing number of patients.
A total of 344 vacancies are lying vacant in the NIH and the government has allowed filling only 148 of them, he added. Briefing the committee about the performance of NIH, the executive director said the anti-rabies vaccine and vaccine for snake venom are easily available across the country.
The members of the committee, however, expressed their reservations over non-availability of specialists at the allergy centre of the NIH and directed the ministry to fill the vacant positions at the earliest. Minister of State for National Health Services, Saira Afzal Tarar admitted the shortage of technical staff in the allergy centre and said the Ministries of Planning and Finance have been informed about it.
She said that public health laboratories are being set up in all four provinces, while there is a need to develop public-private partnership to make sure availability of all the vaccines.
Comments
Comments are closed.