Substandard medical items: ACB asks 26 Delhi hospitals to give procurement details

ACB also sought prosecution sanction against nine doctors who have been found involved in the matter.

The Anti Corruption Branch (ACB) on Thursday wrote to 26 government hospitals seeking details of procurement of the equipment and material they use, two days after the agency arrested 10 people in connection with the case registered against six hospitals for using “sub-standard material”.

ACB said that during the initial investigation, it came to light how different firms and suppliers had provided the requisite items through the GeM portal. (File)(Sonu Mehta/HT PHOTO)

ACB also sought prosecution sanction against nine doctors who have been found involved in the matter. The agency had registered a case against the hospitals on January 5 and the people arrested include two lab technicians and a pharmacist. People familiar with the matter told HT that the agency has found the involvement of nine doctors from Lok Nayak Hospital in the procurement of sub-standard material.

An officer aware of the matter said: “We have written to 26 Delhi government hospitals to share with us the details of their approval and purchase committee, list of suppliers, materials they use and documents related to it. Essentially, we have asked if the suppliers we have arrested have also supplied any material to them. This is an expansion of our probe into the already registered case... As per protocol, we have sought prosecution sanction from the health department regarding the same. These doctors were members of the purchase and approval committee.”

According to protocol, the purchase committee prepares the list of items required by the hospital. Then it uploads the requirement on the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) portal, and the approval committee checks after the items are delivered and whether they are according to the standards laid out by the government.

The first officer said that so far, they have been able to take action against suppliers of six items whose reports revealed that they were of sub-standard quality. “Multiple samples were collected in October 2023 from the six hospitals we were investigating out of which 23 samples were found inadequate. Action has only been taken on six samples so far. Further probe is underway,” the officer added.

ACB chief Madhur Verma said that six teams of the vigilance wing of the health and family welfare department separately visited Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital, Lok Nayak Hospital, Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital, Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital, Sanjay Gandhi Memorial and Janakpuri Super Speciality Hospital and collected samples of different items like rolled bandages, IV sets, deluxe infusion sets, absorbent cotton, latex gloves, etc. These Samples were sent to different Delhi government-approved labs.

The 10 arrested people were identified as Hemant Joshi, 43, Rahul Chaurasia, 31, Kamal Deep Singh, 33, Rajesh Malhotra, 58, Shahid Chaudhary, 31, Shekhar Sharma, 36, Bipin Kumar Pathak, 58, Arjinder Pal Singh, 61, Kapil Makhija, 31, and Harneet Singh Bindra, 42.

ACB said that during the initial investigation, it came to light how different firms and suppliers had provided the requisite items through the GeM portal. According to the protocol, the items were supposed to be delivered with desired certificates from government-approved labs — a vital factor for the sanctity of the items, officials aware of the matter said.

A total of 14 firms connected with the supply in question and belonging to Delhi-NCR were visited and inspected. Relevant documents and devices were seized and suppliers were questioned, Verma said.

“Further investigation into the case revealed discrepancies like government officials avoiding taking the desired lab reports and licenses as mentioned in the GeM contract order. In some cases, license numbers mentioned by the supplier neither belonged to him nor the manufacturer” the officer said adding that in most of the cases, batch numbers of delivered items did not match with those shared with investigators by the manufacturer or supplier.

During the probe, ACB said they found sub-standard material was purchased from local markets with no parameters to check the quality of products supplied to the hospitals.

ACB added that government officials concerned and suppliers continued to commit forgeries in documents even after the issue was taken up for investigation. For instance, Verma said, the sample was picked up by the vigilance department on August 18 and it was found that the suspects managed to fake lab reports with back dates and incorporated them into the records.

The management of government-run facilities has been the latest bone of contention between the lieutenant governor and the Aam Aadmi Party-led Delhi government. Earlier in February, LG VK Saxena wrote to chief minister Arvind Kejriwal expressing his “disappointment and concern” about the state of public health infrastructure and sought a “time-bound response” and the submission of a factual report about the sector. Kejriwal, responding to the development, laid the blame for the state of Delhi’s health system on two bureaucrats — the health secretary and the finance secretary — and asked Saxena to replace them both.

The Delhi health department and the AAP government did not respond to queries seeking comment on the matter.