Shillong, May 04: The non availability of cardiac equipment including stents has affected over 30 patients in the cardiology department of the North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health & Medical Sciences (NEIGRIHMS).

Head of Cardiology Department, Dr Animesh Mishra told reporters on Saturday that as on Friday, not a single stent was made available in the AMRIT pharmacy and hospital pharmacy.

“Not less than 30 patients, who have been posted for critical procedure, have been affected. Some patients have been referred outside. Many of them have taken discharge with a request,” he said.

Stating that the functioning of the department has come to a standstill as far as the operation is concerned, Dr Mishra said the department was attending to OPD patients and emergencies.

“For two days, we were not able to do any work. The outside stents have been confiscated and inside the hospital, the equipment was not available,” he said.

Stating that discontinuation of the supply should be informed six months before as per the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) guidelines, Dr Mishra said, “Now a supplier has been given, but it has been interrupted. Automatically there has to be a mechanism to provide stents from other sources. Patients should not suffer because of the shortage of supply of stents, and that is the intention of Government of India.”

“The situation arises where patients are there on the table, and doctors are also there, but we do not have right equipment to carry out our operations because of the interruption (confiscation of stents, pace makers),” he added.

Meanwhile, the HoD said that the department of Cardiology should be provided with inventory and several requests were made to the institute to provide the inventory.

Expressing concern over the delay, Jasper Pyrtuh, a resident of Moolang village in East Jaiñtia Hills District said that his 76-year-old grandmother was to be operated, but it could not be taken up due to non availability of stents.

“The operation was fixed on Thursday (May 2). When we went to the AMRIT pharmacy, the reply was that stents are not available and my grandmother is seriously ill,” he said while informing that his grandmother was admitted in the hospital for the past two weeks.