Rs 30 cr approved to strengthen drug testing labs in J&K: Secy Health

Srinagar, June 01: The Jammu and Kashmir Health Department is working to strengthen the drug testing facilities and several measures are being taken in this regard, officials said.
Administrative Secretary, Health and Medical Education (H&ME) Department, Bhupinder Kumar, said the Government of India has approved Rs 30 crore to strengthen the existing drug testing laboratories in Jammu and Srinagar.
“We want to focus on improving the testing capacities and maintain all the standards during the testing and wherever there is any violation or there are sub-standard medicines, we take the necessary action as per the law,” he said.
To further push the drug testing in Jammu and Kashmir, a state-of-art Drug Testing Laboratory at Lakhanpur would start functioning soon, he said.
“The modern in its completion stage and the commissioning of machinery has been started and soon we will have this lab functional and we will have better testing facilities,” he said.
Kumar said with the setting up of the modern drug testing laboratory, the annual testing capacity in Jammu and Kashmir shall be increased by 5000 more samples annually.
The laboratory will be equipped with modern machinery and equipment required for identification, evaluation and estimation of drug molecules to the extent of micro quantities
The design of the drug laboratory has been evolved to incorporate all the latest dimensions that are required to guarantee sustainability of reporting during any legal adjudication.
Health officials informed that the new laboratory will have an effective pharmaceutical quality management system that will help to develop a culture of quality, support data integrity, keep suppliers under control and maintain overall compliance.
The official said the check list mandated to acquire National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories accreditation shall be taken care of during the construction.
Notably, the Administrative Secretary said in the two Drugs Testing Laboratories one each at Jammu and Srinagar, around 3300 to 3400 tests are conducted annually.
Talking about QR code-based OPD registration that has been started in 11 leading hospitals in Jammu and Kashmir under Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), the Administrative Secretary said the same facility would be rolled out in all the hospitals.
Talking about rural healthcare, he said that a lot of things have improved in rural areas with several interventions over the years and Indian Public Health Standards (IPHS) norms are followed to make available healthcare facilities.
“People often want to have all facilities at PHCs just like in the District Hospitals but that is impossible and we have to follow norms and then only we can make the healthcare accessible,” he said.
Kumar said the department recently conducted a gap analysis study of infrastructure and provision of adequate manpower and they will prepare a roadmap for the same.
“After the gap analysis we will make a plan of actions and will try to fill those gaps with regard to infrastructure, machinery and manpower in a limited period of time,” he said.
While talking about the manpower crunch in healthcare institutions, he said from time to time they refer the positions of doctors and paramedical staff to the recruiting agencies like Public Services Commission and J&KSSRB.