IGMC equipment worth lakhs remains unused for 3 years

Medical equipment worth lakhs of rupees purchased by the Indira Gandhi Medical College (IGMC) for its pharmacology department has been gathering dust for the past three years. According to details obtained under the Right to Information Act, a high-performance liquid chromatography machine costing `26.57 lakh that was bought on June 16, 2012 had still not been installed at the hospital.

Medical equipment worth lakhs of rupees purchased by the Indira Gandhi Medical College (IGMC) for its pharmacology department has been gathering dust for the past three years. According to details obtained under the Right to Information Act, a high-performance liquid chromatography machine costing `26.57 lakh that was bought on June 16, 2012 had still not been installed at the hospital.

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What is worse, the public works department had not given any firm date for its installation.

According to sources, the ostensible reason for the inordinate delay in installing the new equipment was lack of space at the hospital. Enquiries made at the pharmacology department revealed the machine requires a dust-free and air-conditioned environment and the central virology laboratory was assigned the task of finding a suitable place for installing it.

A high-performance liquid chromatography machine is used for detecting vitamin D levels in blood serum and performance enhancement drugs in urine, research (separating components of a complex biological sample, or of similar synthetic chemicals from each other) and manufacturing (during the production process of pharmaceutical and biological products) among other purposes.

Meanwhile, IGMC principal SS Kaushal claimed the machine would be installed in the hospital soon.