Hyderabad: A severe shortage of medicines is plaguing Telangana state as doctors are in dire need for more than 150 different sets of medicines to treat people suffering from a plethora of diseases whose epidemic has broken out, but only 20 sets of essential medicines with different groups of antibiotics are being supplied.
A senior government doctor at a public health centre in Siddipet said, “Calcium supplementation helps patients in early recovery as the disease affects their bones. We cannot prescribe these medicines as it is not allowed.”
There are currently limited stocks of calcium supplementation for pregnant woman where the maternal healthcare program is being carried in 22 public health centres in the districts, and they would be completely over within a week, unless stocks are urgently replenished.
Superintendents of the Gandhi Hospital, the Osmania General Hospital and area and district hospitals have complained that there are not sufficient medicines for treating viral fever and other vector borne diseases. Doctors have sought 150 different sets of medicine to manage the health epidemic but have been instructed to manage with a mere 20 sets out of them, because the remaining 130 sets are not in stock. Sadly, without those, the doctors cannot manage the problem, which is bound to get more severe.
Doctors say that they are prescribing medicines from outside in the city, which patients are forced to purchase. But very poor patients, those below the BPL, are still depending on government supplies keep coming back to check if stocks have arrived – which they have not.
A senior doctor at the Niloufer Hospital explained, “August was bad as antibiotics, which were stocked to last for a month, were consumed in a mere 10 days. We were forced to use reserve stocks but have done so sparingly. Those who can afford to buy them have been told to do so. Only very poor patients who cannot afford them at all are being supplied, sparingly.” The procurement of medicines is done by the Telangana State Medical Services and Infrastructure Development Corporation (TSMSIDC) but they have not been able to procure required stocks due to lack of funds, said senior officers in the department. Senior doctors have raised the issue of shortage of drugs and medicines in a review meeting with health minister Etala Rajender and TSMSIDC officers. In arguments which took place in front of a helpless minister, while TSMSIDC defended their work, saying they were providing medicines, doctors argued that those were not sufficient.
The doctors complained that their lists are always met with answers of “no stocks available”, and only few of the essentials are being provided.
Doctors from public health centres in districts complained that due to lack of medicines, patients are forced to go to private clinics, quacks or come to general hospitals in Hyderabad city for treatment. Recently, a rumour spread that a leaf of a particular tree can cure or prevent dengue, which led to huge spurt in prices of that leaf, whose medicinal value, doctors maintain, has no basis in science, or remains unproved.
District doctors said that sufficient supply of medicines will reduce load of patients.
