ISLAMABAD, June 10: A drugstore located inside the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) has been sealed for four weeks.

The action has been taken on the recommendation of the Pims authorities against Pharmax Pakistan (Pvt) for providing a wrong injection to a 17-year-old patient, Javaid, due to which he went into a prolonged coma on March 26.

A team of health ministry, comprising chairman of the Quality Control, Khalid Rauf, Federal Drug Inspector Dr Rashid and representatives of the District Health Organization (DHO) sealed the drugstore on Saturday.

Earlier, the Pims administration had issued a show cause notice to the druggist and also sought the health ministry order for sealing of the drugstore immediately and termination of its contract.

An inquiry conducted by the Pims administration revealed that the salesman of the drugstore misunderstood the doctor’s prescription and provided tracurim injection (a long acting anaesthetic agent) instead of Transamin, (the fresh frozen plasma) to the patient’s attendant.

The Pims in its recommendation described the act a sheer negligence stating that the drugstore charged the price of the injection Atrelax 5ml from the attendant.

Meanwhile, the hospital administration had fired two nurses responsible for administering the intravenous injection without verifying it from the patient’s file.

The inquiry report alleged that the incident occurred due to the absence of the pharmacist from the store, which was violative of his contract he had signed with the hospital.

Soon after the injection was administered to the patient, he had become unconscious and developed skeletal muscles paralysis which led to his cardio-pulmonary arrest.

Meanwhile, the chief executive of Pharmax Pakistan, Zahid Riaz, rejected the allegations and said that those were being forced on him just to make the store a scapegoat to favour some other interested parties.

Talking to Dawn he claimed that the drug inspectors had conducted a thorough inspection of the store for 12 hours on Saturday but could not find a single violation of the agreement.

He also questioned why the Pims administration did not take action against the doctor-in-charge, as intravenous injection could only be administered under his supervision. “Instead the Pims authorities only chose to dismiss the two nurses,” he said.