Drug pharmacy centre faces shortage of medicines

Ravi Chandel

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, August 6

The drug Pharmacy centre that provides free medicines to patients at Bhai Mani Singh Civil Hospital in the city has been facing shortage of drugs.

The hospital has a drug warehouse, which was established at a cost of Rs 376.39 lakh by the state government last year.

Though the drug warehouse has to provide 300 free medicines to various government hospitals, including Bathinda, Mansa, Sangrur, Barnala, Moga, Sri Muktsar Sahib, Faridkot and Fazilka, the drug pharmacy centre doesn’t have stock enough for the district.

A number of patients said despite the drug warehouse situated in Btahinda, the drug pharmacy centre is going through shortage of medicines.

“We have to buy many medicines from the market,” they said.

Manpreet Bains, a patient, said, “Many a time, doctors prescribe medicines that are not available at the drug pharmacy centre.”

As per information, the drug pharmacy centre has only 35 types of medicines of which the maximum are Analgesic drugs.

The chief pharmacist at the drug pharmacy centre refuted the allegations of shortage of medicines at the centre.

He said, “We have 55 free medicines available here. However, if there is a shortage of medicines then we sort out the problem at the earliest.”

On the other hand, the chief pharmacist at the Bathinda drug warehouse centre claimed that they were regularly distributing 214 types of medicines free of cost to various district government hospitals, which came under their drug warehouse centre.

Moreover, this number of free medicines would probably increase in the near future, he added.

Senior Medical Officer Sukhjinder Singh said, “I was not aware of the issue related to the shortage of medicines. We will resolve if there is such problem.”