Latest update November 30th, 2024 3:38 PM
Feb 20, 2014 News
Officials of the Ministry of Health were set to start a probe this week on the circumstances that led to a significant quantity of expired drugs reportedly being dumped more than a week ago at the Agricola Health Centre.
The incident had seen angry residents assaulting contract workers of the ministry’s Material Management Unit.
On Monday, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Leslie Cadogan, said he was asked by Minister Bheri Ramsaran to investigate the incident.
Cadogan was at the time appearing before Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee which was examining the 2011 report of the Auditor General.
Member of Parliament, Manzoor Nadir, and other members of PAC were interested in the incident, especially as there have been questions over the capacity of the Ministry to handle billions of dollars in drugs it buys for the hospitals annually.
The Permanent Secretary said he and the Chief Medical Officer, Shamdeo Persaud, accompanied by security, were expected to shortly visit the Agricola centre.
He refused to comment on what may have transpired. But initial indications are that the expired drugs came from donations.
On February 11, Ministry of Health contract workers came under attack from a group of men, some of whom had guns, while dumping boxes of drugs in the compound.
Some of the medication, seen by this newspaper, had expired since 2010.
When asked, the contract workers reportedly said that they were “only working with instructions from the Ministry of Health, when we finish here, we done… call Bheri (the Minister).”
After a few minutes of arguing between the MOH contract workers and the residents, a group of men arrived with their faces covered with their jerseys; some on bicycles and others on foot.
Four of the gang members jumped on the truck and attacked the two workers who were on it. The other two workers stayed in the centre’s compound.
At least two of the persons who came, had guns tucked in their pants.
Minister Ramsaran had told Kaieteur News that his Ministry had instructed the Director of Regional Health Services (DRHS) to get rid of the drugs in a safe manner.
“I was told that the drugs were supposed to be stored in a vacant upper flat at the centre, and it is very bad if they were dumped just like that in front of the centre. The DRHS instructed them to store the drugs in a safe manner, but her good intentions backfired.”
He also said that if the Health Ministry had wanted to dump expired drugs then they wouldn’t leave Georgetown to go up the East Bank. He promised to launch an investigation.
Nov 30, 2024
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