Clinics without rabies vaccines as supplier, MCD argue over prices

Dispensaries under the three municipal corporations of Delhi — many of them identified as 'rabies clinic' — have run out of rabies vaccines.

The shortage is an outcome of a spat with the agency that had signed a three-year contract with the municipal corporations for supply of medical goods, including rabies vaccines.

The municipal dispensaries are now referring all suspected cases to the government hospitals for vaccination against the deadly rabies virus.

Commissioner of East corporation S S Yadav said: "We have not had the vaccines at our centres for nearly two years now. We have been referring patients to government hospitals, especially Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital."

The civic agency, he said, is in the process of procuring the vaccines and making the dispensaries self-sufficient.

Sources in the three corporations confirmed that the agency, which held the contract for supply from 2011 to 2013, was supplying about 300 items at prices higher than market rates.

"We have managed to arrive at a consensus on the rates of the majority of drugs, but for about 300 items, including the rabies vaccines, there is still some dispute. We told major hospitals to procure all the items, including the rabies vaccines, from their own local budgets till the matter is resolved," Director of Hospital Administration (South corporation) Dr A K Mittal said.

There are around 150 dispensaries run by the municipal corporations in the city.

"We are referring most of our patients to Safdarjung Hospital. We have no option, since there are no MCD hospitals nearby," a doctor from a South Delhi dispensary said.

Officials said requests were made to the public health wings of the three corporations to open tenders for the purchase of fresh stock of vaccines.

An official from North corporation's Hospital Administration department said: "There was a request from the Delhi government, directing us to arrange for vaccines, since too many patients were being referred to their hospitals. But this process never took off."

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