Only 5 out of 43 hospitals medicine samples substandard: Min

With a CBI inquiry being ordered into the supply of substandard medicines in Delhi government hospitals, Delhi Health Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj said on Friday that of the “43 samples “collected from three hospitals, only five were declared “not of standard quality.”

At a press conference in the national capital, he said the official report used many times the terms “NSQ” or “not of standard quality.” It is “nowhere mentioned (in the report) that the drugs are fake, counterfeit, poison and spurious”.

“You cannot write it officially like that, as it wasn’t so,” he said.

The Union Home Ministry has ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry into the alleged supply of substandard medicines in Delhi government hospitals and if the drugs were also distributed through mohalla clinics, sources said on Friday.

The CBI probe was ordered following a recommendation by Delhi Lt Governor VK Saxena in December.

Bharadwaj also sought to blame the BJP on the issue and alleged that the saffron party is “spreading rumours” about these drugs being “fake and spurious” though the medicines were “neither spurious nor fake, they just did not meet some of the standards (of testing)”.

The health minister’s office later issued a statement in which it alleged that “the BJP is spreading lies about fake medicines in Delhi to influence the upcoming elections.

Responding to the allegations, the BJP’s Delhi unit chief, Virendra Sachdeva questioned why Bhardwaj “remained silent, although he had claimed to have been aware of the issues related to medicines and pathological tests in March 2023 itself.