Hyderabad: To break connections between government hospitals and private medical shops in their vicinity, the Telangana Health Department will seize all pharmacies within a three-kilometre radius of government hospitals in Hyderabad. Health minister Harish Rao announced the decision at a recent review meeting.
According to senior health department officials, several government doctors were caught prescribing medicines from pharmacies although the same medicines were available at government pharmacies.
Sources told Deccan Chronicle some doctors even operated pharmacies on the premises of government hospitals, compelling patients to pay for medications that were otherwise free.
Harish Rao chaired a meeting with the management of hospitals and Resident Medical Officers (RMOs), Superintendents and directed them to emulate Tamil Nadu’s policy of not allowing private medical shops to operate within three kilometres of government hospitals and ensuring that all 820 branded medications that were shortlisted by the department are available in the state’s hospitals.
Further, the Telangana State Medical Services and Infrastructure Development Corporation (TSMSIDC) was additionally tasked by the health department with keeping a three-month supply of medicines by monitoring their expiration dates.
The TSMSIDC was also instructed to improve and repair the diagnostic centres run by the government so that they are on par with the private ones.
