Daily Times

LAHORE: The Primary and Secondary Healthcare (P&SHC) Department has failed to ensure availability of qualified persons at drugs stores in Punjab.

It seems that department is reluctant to take action against those pharmacies and medical stores, which were running unauthorised on rented certificates.

Well informed sources privy to this development told Daily Times that the P&SHC Department did not have any data about medical stores working in Punjab.

Currently, unqualified people throughout the province are running hundreds of medical stores. According the sources, qualified people do not visit pharmacies, and in some cases, they are out of the country but their credentials are being used at different pharmacies.

They said unqualified people at drugstores issued wrong drugs to patients in the name of substitutes, which often cause harm to the patients. But all such cases go unreported.

Sources said that qualified persons had rented out their licenses to proprietors and taking hefty amount. They said drug inspectors were not performing their responsibilities properly and they were being allegedly blamed for taking bribes from medical stores proprietors.

The Drug Rules 2007 formulated under the Drug Act 1976 bound the Punjab government to implement the rules in letter and spirit, but unfortunately, these rules were not implemented leading towards self-medication, sale of drugs without qualified person and unabated sale of psychotropic, controlled, misbranded, spurious and substandard medicines, sources added.

Drug court of Lahore had strictly directed the P&SHC Department to take action against the pharmacies being run on rented registration and also ordered to ensure physical presence of registered pharmacists on their stores. The court had ordered health officials to advertise through press that misuse of a license/certificate of any medicine from such an outlet may endanger their lives.

Moreover, all drug controllers and drug inspectors in Punjab have been told by Punjab chief drug controller to implement the existing Drugs Act 1976 / DRAP Act 2012 and Punjab Drugs Rules 2007 in letter and spirit, but the P&SHC Department – despite a lapse of considerable time – had not submitted any report on action taken in this regard.

According to standard procedure, a qualified person can issue right drug with right dose and frequency at right time to right patient.

In this connection, drug inspectors are once again directed to implement rules in letter and spirit and furnish updated reports on action taken in this regard on regularly basis.