Hospitals must take FDA notification seriously

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Patients cannot be compelled to purchase medicines from hospital-attached drug stores, the Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has said. A notification issued by FDA Commissioner Abhimanyu Kale said FDA had received repeated complaints that patients have been forced to buy medicines from the drugstore in hospitals.

It is illegal for a hospital to force patients to buy medicines from their affiliated stores, reports cited the notification, addressed to all divisional joint commissioners, assistant commissioners, and drug inspectors.

Patients don't need to buy medicines from hospital-affiliated shops and the same can be purchased from any licensed drug store, it said. The hospitals should prominently display a signboard at a prominent place visible to the patients, as per the notification.

Also Read: Patients cannot be forced to buy medicines from hospital-attached shops: Maharashtra FDA

This is important given that patients have complained. We want to see the reaction and some proactive measures by commissioners who have been given the notification. They must check where this signboard will be placed at health facilities. It will be good if it is placed on the website too, given that we now straddle both offline and online spaces. People must also have an avenue through which they can complain and they must know who to approach if they are forced to buy medication from hospital-affiliated stores. When ‘coercion' comes in, it is obvious there is some kind of tie-up or mutual benefit because one can think of no other reason why patients are being forced to buy for a certain place.

The moot point is that the patient voice has to be heard. If licensed shops have the same medicine then why not just recommend instead of forcing people to buy from a certain place only? Let people have freedom and choice plus convenience to buy from licensed places according to their will. This must be taken seriously and enforced by hospitals.