Date-expired fluid

The court has done a laudable job. But we believe that medicare is too important an area to be left to the unscrupulous elements having no regard for human lives. Only periodical or seasonal inspections by such courts are not enough. The latest findings are an extremely disturbing and sad example of how the existing medical facilities have been vitiated by corruption on an unprecedented scale.

The use of date-expired medicines amounts to committing murder for the sole purpose of making undue profits. The health ministry owes an explanation to the people as to how such crimes could be committed in a well known hospital.

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What the mobile court has found is the tip of an iceberg. The fraudulent and hazardous practices at the hospitals are of various kinds taking place at different levels. The government has for too long allowed the hospital operators an absolute freehand which, admittedly, has led to setting up of some good clinics, and some bad ones as well. What is needed now is efficient hospital administration. The health ministry should immediately form an expert committee, with professionals having the requisite backgrounds, and go for a thorough investigation into the anomalies, irregularities and malpractice that plague the health sector as a whole. And inspection of clinics and hospitals on a regular basis must be made mandatory.

We find clinics and hospitals almost everywhere in the city, but few of us are aware of what is going on inside them. Are these so-called medicare providers following any guidelines or are they accountable to any authorities for their performance? The health authorities should introduce a gradation system to evaluate the performance of hospitals. A legal framework and a code of operation for running a hospital must also be developed to stop what we have witnessed at the kidney hospital. It is a totally unacceptable lowering of the value of human life, which only brings disgrace to those in charge of helping patients in distress.