Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh on Friday strongly negated media reports about insufficient and sterilized equipments to undergo medical treatments at the only state-run Jawaharlal institute of medical sciences (JNIMS).

The CM also urged the media fraternity in the state to cross check "any report before publishing to avoid
defamation of institutions or any persons in the state."

Biren Singh made the clarification during the Zero Hour at the ongoing Assembly session in connection with a report which was published on Thursday that sterilized materials to conduct surgical operations were unavailable at JNIMS.

As per reports, local daily reported that a patient who was supposed to undergo an appendix operation at JNIMS had to be transferred to another hospital after no sterilized equipments were found available at JNIMS.

The leader of the House also told the House that a thorough enquiry has been conducted and it was found that there is no shortage of sterilised materials including clothes in the hospital.

"The concerned patient cited in the media report was admitted for undergoing operation in the hospital" Biren added that the patient was "discharged and went to another hospital" due "to long queue of patients waiting for operations," a press release issued by DIPR informed.