AUDIT REPORT Audit officers have discovered that Hospital Canselor Tuanku Muhriz (HCTM) had kept a five-year load of expired drugs worth RM308,373.

The 2015 Auditor-General Report (Series 2) stated that the medicines, expired between 2010 and 2014, were found inside an unlocked main store of Pharmaceutical Department during a visit in Nov 2015.

The hospital's failure to conduct proper procurement planning had resulted in the wastage, noted the report which was tabled in Parliament yesterday.

The relevant circular stipulated that the hospital need to update the status of drugs stored six months before expiry to ensure no oversupply. The drugs need to be disposed off once they have expired.

"In our opinion, HCTM failed to conduct proper procurement planning resulting in medication to expire, thus can no longer be used for patients," it said.

Last December, the audit officers also found that the hospital had stocked large quantity of expired intravenous (IV) drips due to mistake at the delivery stage.

"HCTM had informed that the IV drips, which belonged to the supplier, were meant to exchange with (other) drug supplies as (they were) mistakenly sent when order had been made," it said.

In its explanation, the hospital said it had recorded an annual drug disposal rate between 0.07 percent and 0.3 percent, still within the permissible rate of 0.5 percent.

The hospital, which spent RM12,600 for three unit of stoves and RM495,000 for two units of chiller and freezer, could not fully utilise the equipment to prepare food for patients.

This was part of the RM2.65 million renovation of the hospital's main kitchen.

A fire broke out at the kitchen in June 2014, allegedly originated from a stove, which had caused safety concern. The stoves are no longer in use.

The audits were conducted on the RM1.83 billion spent by HCTM and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) from 2013 to to 2015 on procurement through direct purchases, quotations, tenders and direct negotiations.

Other problems are:

  1. 512 local orders or invoices amounting to RM1.17 million were split into smaller amounts to avoid procedures on price quotation.
     
  2. 186 local orders amounting to RM268,892 between 2013 and 2015 were prepared, verified and approved by the same officer.
     
  3. The supplier did not supply eight loud speakers worth RM19,684 to Langkawi Research Centre despite the money paid.
     
  4. There were differences in prices ranging from 10 percent to 52.8 percent for the procurement of 12 same type of toner obtained from different suppliers.
     
  5. The construction of HCTM's RM28.6 million multi-storey building was not completed in January 2015 as planned. Public Works Department is identifying a new contractor to complete the car park.