PESHAWAR: Health department has directed district health officers, medical superintendents of hospitals and heads of regional blood banks to provide details of procurements in the last five years as National Accountability Bureau has launched investigation into the matter.

The department has issued a notification regarding the purchases made from 2019 to 2024 from all districts. The notification directed them to furnish details about medicines, equipment and other material on a separate pro forma with year-wise details of budgetary allocation and expenditure in view of the investigation launched by NAB.

Sources in the department said that the matter of procurements by districtheadquarters and other hospitals in the province was being probed owing to allegations of misappropriation of government`s funds and unnecessary procurements.

They said that most of the procurements dated back to 2020 when health department made massive purchases to cope with the pandemic of Covid-19.

In February 2020, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government invoked Public Health (Surveillance and Response) Act, 2017, to be able to acquire medical supplies and other resources in speedy manner and put brakes on possible transmission of the virus.

The department desperately needed personal protective equipment (PPEs) along with medicines for effective management of coronavirus so it authorised the purchases without going through long legal process and officials concernedbeganbuyingitemstheyneeded, sources said.

However, later on it was revealed during the inspections that most of the procurements made during the coronavirus hadn`t been utilised. Most of the items were lying unused. The depart-ment had also taken notice of the equipment lying in boxes in several hospitals and devised a plan to shift the same to health facilities where those were needed. However, the plan couldn`t be materialised.

Taking advantage of the emergency, several items were purchased during Covid-19 without assessment. Machines worth millions of rupees purchased by government to facilitate patients hadn`t been in use as those had been procured without any prior need-based demands from the hospitals.

The department had been asking all the medical superintendents and district health officers to send details of uninstalled machines so that those could be shifted to the hospitals where they were required.

A report compiled by the department showed that incubators, baby warmers and even gynaecological suction machines were also purchased and provided to hospitals where gynaecological, paediatric and nursery wards were even non-existent.

The report said that several of items purchased needlessly were yet to be unpacked and were dumped in stores,showing that neither need assessment was carried out nor was prior demand obtained from hospitals.

The department had also sought details of medicines purchased during the last five years along with consumption reports to see if those medicines were really procured and issued to patients.

Sources in district hospitals told Dawn that it was very difficult to provide details of five years as all the record was maintained manually in registers that couldn`t be maintained for longer periods.

The report said that a district headquarters hospital was given 10 ventilators that were consigned to store while 400 mattresses and 200 blankets were provided to 110-bed hospital and another hospital received over a dozen oxygen concentrators without any justification.

Warranty periods of most of the items had also expired without being put into usage, it said. However, sources said that such directives would find no re ceptive ears and would be forgotten, therefore, responsible people would remain unmoved about provision of details.