KARACHI: The Pakistan Society of Interventional Cardiol­ogy (PSIC) said on Monday that doctors were not mandated legally or otherwise to check the expiry date or quality of the equipment, drugs, devices or consumables provided to them by the hospital.

The PSIC, which represents interventional cardiology community of Pakistan, was sharing its concerns over a report about a Federal Investigation Agency’s inquiry into the use of expired stents to treat cardiac patients in the Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC).

The FIA report has recently been submitted to the Lahore High Court and published by this newspaper.

Responding to the allegations raised in the news item captioned “Expired stents — FIA finds glaring irregularities and grave negligence”, the society stated the story created a false impression of involvement of “our members in unethical practices”.

‘Maintaining proper authentic inventory is hospital’s job and not of operating surgeon’

“We noted with grave concern that the aforementioned article is misleading and factually incorrect and creates a false impression of our members’ involvement in unethical practices.”

The matter under investigation of FIA, it pointed out, was of usage of expired stents used in 29 angioplasty procedures out of a total of around 9,000 angioplasties done in 2021 at PIC, Lahore.

“Two inquiries have already been conducted by the government of Punjab in this matter and to our knowledge none of them either accused or concluded that any operator or doctor involved in this matter did so knowingly or benefitted personally in any monetary manner,” the society said.

The matter, it explained, was essentially of maladministration and mismanagement of the supply chain of this public sector hospital. Moreover, to society’s knowledge, there was no mention or accusation of any bogus cases being done by doctors as mentioned in the news.

“PIC is the oldest and largest tertiary cardiac care hospital in Punjab. According to its annual report of 2021, it has carried out 34,641 interventional procedures in 2021. Every minute detail of each case including consumption of devices and consumables is documented and record is maintained as per standard protocol for all public sector hospitals in Pakistan.

“The operator or cardiologists are not mandated legally or otherwise to check the expiry date or quality of the equipment, drugs, devices or consumables provided to them by the hospital. This is the sole responsibility of the hospital administration, the stores and the pharmacy department as per local Pakistani as well as international protocol,” it said.

The society also referred to the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory (CCL) Standards and Best Practice Guidelines for Pakistan 2017 — a document prepared on the court’s orders — according to which acquiring and maintaining proper authentic inventory is the responsibility of the hospital administration and not the operating physician or surgeon. The provincial health commissions are mandated to ensure compliance with the protocols outlined in the document.

“In this matter under investigation, the expired stents should not have been available in the cath lab nor forwarded to the cath lab by the store or pharmacy for use in patients.

“The PSIC will never support or condone any personal or professional act of its member which is not in accordance with standard international practices or protocol and it expects its members to maintain the highest ethical, moral and professional standards in imparting care to its patients without any fear or favour,” it said.

Published in Dawn, February 1st, 2022