Health Secretary, PIC officials knew about spurious medicine

 

Punjab Chief Minister’s inspection team revealed that Punjab Health Secretary, PIC officials were in knowledge of spurious medicine since January 11 and they were aware that patients were dying due to medicine reaction.

 

On January 13, some officials of Health Department personally investigated the matter and sent samples of some medicines to Karachi through head of Allama Iqbal Medical College, Dr Javed Ikram.

 

On January 14, a federal government official Sheikh Akhtar was present in Lahore but he did not submit any report.

 

The Punjab Chief Minister who left for Germany on January 17 was not aware of the issue. News Trends broke the news about deaths of patients due to reaction of PIC medicine on January 14. Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah informed the chief minister on phone about the incident after news aired on News Trends.

 

The chief minister then formed an inspection team to investigate the issue. When chief minister’s secretary Dr Ajmal and Khawaja Salman Rafique contacted the laboratory in Karachi, they were informed that no samples of medicine came from Lahore. However, they were informed that report on medicine sample received FIA was dispatched to federal government.

 

It was learnt during the investigation that Punjab Institute of Cordialogy’s administration was of the opinion that PIC is an autunomous body and only answerable to its board of governor and not to Punjab government.