Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation Commissioner Abhijit Bangar on Monday set up a task force under the supervision of a deputy commissioner level officer to control the misuse of Remdesivir injection.
The team has been instructed to visit the hospitals either after receiving complaints or as per the schedule and to check whether they have procured Remdesivir vials as per their requirements and how many of them have actually been used.
“This will ensure that the anti-viral injection is used only for the patient as requested by the hospital, and the team will also inspect whether the name of that patient is written on the empty bottle. The caps of injections used are to be preserved by the hospitals and they will also be verified. The team will also check whether the stock of Remdesivir provided to the hospital is used only for the patients admitted there,” Mr. Bangar said.
As per the norms, every hospital is supposed to get the injection from the collector office. At the end of the day, the hospital should inform the collector office of its need for the next day. “The demand, distribution, and use of Remdesivir has been decided by the Thane District Collectorate for Navi Mumbai and the necessary supply is being channelled through it,” the commissioner said.
He further said that no hospital was supposed to ask the patient’s relatives to arrange the injection which also encouraged its black marketing. “Despite these instructions, we have been getting several complains about private hospitals resorting to such practice. Hence, we decided to have a task force to keep tabs on the purchase and use of the injection by the hospitals,” Mr. Bangar said.
The corporation had on Saturday served show cause notices on three private hospitals for allegedly prescribing the injection to patients.
