Date:01/06/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/06/01/stories/2006060120880300.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

Only prescriptions come free

Sahana Charan

HEALTH OFHOSPITALS - II Patients in government hospitals are forced to buy medicines from nearby shops

Bangalore: Patients going to government hospitals are put to hardship while buying medicines — many of the essential drugs supposed to be stocked at the pharmacy are not available.

Patients visiting these hospitals are asked to buy medicines from private medical stores, although they are entitled to free medicines from the hospital pharmacy.

The poor are the worst hit because they cannot afford to buy some of the highly priced medicines from a private outlet.

"First of all, we stand for hours at the out-patient department and finally when we are written out a prescription, we are told that we have to buy the medicines from outside as they are not available in the hospital," said Siddegowda, a patient from Tavarekere. There has been severe shortage of drugs at the hospital outlets for many years because of irregular and insufficient supply from the Government Medical Stores (GMS), official sources told The Hindu .

All government hospitals in the city have to get their quota of essential drugs mentioned in the drug list from the GMC. The GMS procures drugs on the "essential drug list" through a rate contract system for which tenders are called.

But because of problems during the tendering process, medicines were not reaching the hospitals on time and there was insufficient supply. "Now the situation has improved slightly. We need at least three lakh vials of a particular analgesic but we got only 5,000 vials. The staff from the hospital pharmacy have to make at least 60 trips to the GMS to obtain the drugs from there," sources at the Victoria Hospital said. The situation is the same at the Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital and the K.C. General Hospital.

Transporting medicines from the stores is another problem. The hospital staff themselves have to travel to the medical stores, often many times, to get the drugs, sources said.

According to doctors at Victoria Hospital, patients are written out prescriptions with the generic name of the drug to be brought from the hospital outlet.

"But many times they come back saying that the drug was not available at the hospital and ask us to alter the prescription. Often we have to write the brand names, especially of antibiotics, so that the patient can buy the dose from a private outlet. We do not have a choice because we have to ensure that the patient gets the medicine," said a senior doctor.

K.V. Ashok Kumar, Medical Superintendent of Victoria Hospital, said the allocation of Rs. 1.85 crore for procuring medicines was inadequate to meet the needs of the hospital, which gets around 1,200 out-patients every day. Of the 964 beds, almost 90 per cent are occupied.

The user charges were too low and not enough to bear the cost of subsidy for medicines, he added.