New Delhi, Mar 15 (PTI) The Delhi Assembly on Friday passed a resolution directing the chief secretary to resolve within a week issues related to "deficiencies" in medicine supply and lab tests at government-run hospitals and Mohalla Clinics.

MLAs of the ruling AAP highlighted that people of the city were facing problems due to a shortage of medicines and deficiencies in lab tests.

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The House passed by voice vote the resolution directing chief secretary Naresh Kumar to urgently resolve the issues within a week. Kumar was also instructed to submit a report on the steps taken to the Health minister within a week.

"People are extremely distressed due to the shortage of medicines and lack of lab tests at hospitals, Mohalla Clinics and dispensaries of Delhi government," Health Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj claimed in the Assembly.

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"Lab tests are being stopped and the companies are not ready to conduct tests after March due to pending payments for a year," he claimed further.

Delhi's poor people are "extremely distressed" due to the shortage of medicines and laboratory tests, the Health minister said.

The procurement process for medicines is standard. The Central Procurement Agency (CPA) procures and distributes medicines for the Delhi government, however, tenders are issued every year for this purpose, he said.

"A tender was issued for medicines on December 21, 2022. However, officials continued to conduct technical evaluations of that tender throughout the year. After a year passed, that tender expired," he said.

The current tender is also expiring in March this year. However, the hospitals, dispensaries and Mohalla Clinics of the Delhi government are running out of supplies, he said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)