PHCs Stopped Medical Supplies In Bengaluru

PHCs Stopped Medical Supplies In Bengaluru
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PHCs Stopped Medical Supplies In Bengaluru

Highlights

  • Doctors in Bengaluru are denying care to patients due to a lack of basic medical supplies at Primary Health Centers (PHCs).
  • A lack of essential medical supplies affects at least 40% of the 201 PHCs run by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) in the city.

Doctors in Bengaluru are denying care to patients due to a lack of basic medical supplies at Primary Health Centers (PHCs). This is true even though the PHCs are the first place that the general public turns to in the event of illness or a medical emergency.

A lack of essential medical supplies affects at least 40% of the 201 PHCs run by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) in the city. This situation has arisen as a result of the state's medicine and medical equipment suppliers stopping deliveries to the Karnataka State Medical Supplies Corporation Limited (KSMSCL) since the latter has not paid bills that have been owed for the past two years.

Dr. KV Thrilok Chandra, the Special Commissioner for Health for the BBMP, acknowledged the issue and added that PHC personnel and physicians have been instructed to obtain medications for patients from Jan Aushadhi Kendras.

A PHC physician claimed to have gone two weeks without using non-sterile gloves. He claimed that even basic items like cotton, suture kits, cetirizine, iron tablets, metformin (a medication for diabetes), and even cough syrups had been in limited supply.
A supplier in Bengaluru claimed that because their payments were unpaid, they had chosen to cease all deliveries. Vendors reported that bills totaling Rs 50 crore were awaiting approval from the state government, but suppliers asserted that the amount was significantly higher—Rs 100 crore. According to Dr. Chandra, the KSMSCL had a supply problem since some of its tenders had not yet been approved.
According to a representative of the BBMP health department, the KSMSCL department was having trouble paying its costs because of the frequently shifting leadership structures. Somashekhar's replacement as managing director of KSMSCL has not yet been named.

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