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Medical shops to shut today
Drug stores in the State will down their shutters on Tuesday in protest against the Central government’s proposal of sale of medicine through an e-portal. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has proposed to establish a robust e-enabled structure for regulating the sale of medicines in the country to ensure drugs meet the standard quality and curb antimicrobial resistance.
Central government’s proposal of sale of medicine through an e-portal opposed
Hyderabad: Drug stores in the State will down their shutters on Tuesday in protest against the Central government’s proposal of sale of medicine through an e-portal. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has proposed to establish a robust e-enabled structure for regulating the sale of medicines in the country to ensure drugs meet the standard quality and curb antimicrobial resistance.
The pharmacists, however, are strongly opposing the move on the ground that once the e-portal structure comes into force they would have to pay an additional one per cent tax. R Ravindra Gupta, president, The Greater Hyderabad Retail Medical Shops Association (GHRMSA), said, “According to the new structure medicines other than drugs included in Schedule H, H1 and X are to be dispensed only against prescription of a registered medical practitioner. More than 50 per cent of the drugs come under the schedule. Chemists would have no choice but close down shops.”
The new requirement to upload records by entering details of the stock received and supplied to them including the sale of medicines on a central server. This includes all stockists, wholesalers and distributors. The data can be entered online or through a mobile phone. Pharmacies located in rural areas can upload once a fortnight.
Suman Gupta, who runs a medical store in Sultan Bazaar and a member of GHRMSA said, “We do not have a problem with the new structure but there are too many inconsistencies which are not only detrimental to the chemists but also patients.
Doctors prescribe multiple antibiotics to the same patient for a day or two and not the whole duration, patients in India for want of money and illiteracy do not complete the course. This anomaly should first be corrected if the government is sincere in curbing antimicrobial resistance.”
