Thiruvananthapuram: While free medicines are being supplied in bulk to government hospitals across the state, many institutions are yet to put in place good storage facilities.
About 830 drugs under the Essential Drugs List (EDL) and Rationalised Drugs List (RDL) are being supplied to the 1,300 odd hospitals including district, taluk hospitals, community health centres and primary health centres.
The Kerala Medical Services Corporation (KMSCL) which supplies the medicines to hospitals from its warehouses across the state, had directed the institutions to arrange good storage facilities. However many hospitals are yet to follow suit.
At the state level workshop conducted by the KMSCL in September, the experts had stressed the need for good storage facilities to ensure that drugs worth lakhs of rupees are not rendered useless. The government is spending a whopping Rs 245 crores for free medicine schemes this year covering the BPL and APL sections.
The Government had also decided to recruit more than 150 pharmacists across the state to streamline the functioning of pharmacies attached to hospitals. Besides, KMSCL is also putting in place an online system to connect all hospital pharmacies to effectively monitor the movement, availability and requirement of medicines in hospitals.
But many say it’s high time the government shifted focus and spent money on improving drug stores and storage facilities in hospitals to ensure the successful implementation of various free medicine schemes.
