Civil Hospital’s dispensary faces shortage of medicines

Ajay Joshi

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, January 3

The dispensary at the Civil Hospital has been facing a shortage of medicines. Patients at the hospital are forced to purchase expensive medicines from private medical stores.

Vijay Kumari, chief pharmacist, Civil Hospital, said only 30-35 per cent medicines listed by the government in the essential drugs (EDN) category were available in the dispensary.

“The Civil Hospital witnesses over 2,000 patients daily. Pharmacists at the dispensary find it tough to provide the exact medicines to patients as per the recommendation of doctors,” said the chief pharmacist.

At present, the hospital is facing a shortage of life-saving drugs, antibiotics and anti-allergic medicines, injections and other emergency doses. Besides, sources said anaesthetic drug and Lignocaine injection had been out of stock for the past six months. Only 50 per cent of emergency glucose bottles were received by the hospital in its last order.

Bhagwant Kaur, pharmacist at the dispensary, said most of the time, they couldn’t give medicines, which were prescribed by doctors, due to the shortage. She said so, the similar medicines were given to patients so that they would not have to buy these from private stores.

“Generally, pregnant women suffer the most due to the unavailability of medicines. Sometimes, either iron capsules run out of stock or calcium capsules remain unavailable,” she added.

Moreover, patients belonging to a poor section of society are the worst-hit due to lack of antibiotic and antipyretic medicines. Manoj, who had come to take medicines for her daughter, said it was not the first time that he failed to get medicines from the dispensary of the Civil Hospital. He said for the past many months, he either purchased medicines from private chemists or got medicines of different brand from the hospital.

Vijay Kumari said, “We receive medicines from an Amritsar-based drug warehouse and at present, the supply of medicines has been curtailed due to lack of grants from the government. Earlier, we used to purchase the medicines from outside stores. As the medical superintendent is on leave, so we did not get approval to buy emergency medicines.”

Civil Surgeon Rajesh Baggha said the Civil Hospital authorities had nothing to do with this matter as it was checked and financed by state Health Department.