Banarpal: In a shocking incident, several sacks of life saving medicines were recovered along National Highway-55 at Hata Square here in Angul district Monday.
The incident sparked resentment in the area as most of these sacks contained pediatric medicines which are usually administered to children for treatment of various ailments.
While some of the medicines were found to have expired their term, the remaining stock was found to be physicians’ samples with the warning of not for sale written on their labels, it was learnt.
The matter came to the fore after locals noticed some rag pickers collecting the medicines from the sacks dumped on the roadside. However, they failed to ascertain whether the medicines were of government hospitals or of private hospitals.
Locals flayed the dumping of life saving drugs when poor people do not get medicines for treatment of killer diseases. They suspected that some officials of the health department and doctors might have dumped the surplus medicine on the roadside.
When contacted, the medical officer of Banarpal community health centre (CHC) Ramakrushna Satpathy said some outsiders might have dumped the medicines on the roadside. He said the ‘not for sale’ tag on the medicine covers indicates that the stocks might have been supplied by the government. PNN
