Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Dec 26: Acting tough, the Government today launched crackdown on the doctors violating the directive to write medicines, which were available free of cost in the hospitals, seized 250 prescriptions for scrutiny and attached two doctors.
The Government had issued directive that they shouldn’t write matching salt of another company if that drug was available within the hospital free of cost for the patients, the list of which had been displayed at all Government hospitals.
Health and Medical Education Minister Bali Bhagat told the Excelsior that they had been receiving complaints about violation of the Government directive by the doctors, who were writing drugs of other companies even when the similar drugs were available free of cost within the hospital.
“We acted on the complaints and found that two senior doctors had written drugs on prescription of some other companies to the patients, who had to purchase them from outside, while the drugs with same salt of other companies were available within the hospitals free of cost,” Bhagat said.
He said Dr Viqar Hussain Qazi, MD Medicines, Medical Officer, District Hospital Ramban and Dr Suman Abrol, Medical Officer, Government Hospital, Gandhi Nagar, have been attached with the Directorate of Health Services, Jammu pending an inquiry against them.
The inquiry will be conducted by Dr Ajay Gupta, Deputy Director, Headquarters, Directorate of Health Services, Jammu. He will furnish the report within 15 days.
Sources said prescription of both the doctors seized by the Health Department revealed that they had blatantly been violating the Government directive to write the medicines to the patients available within the hospital and had prescribed same salt drugs of another company, which the patients had to purchase from outside.
This, according to sources, was being done by some of the doctors in different hospitals allegedly in-nexus with the drug shopkeepers.
Sources said 68 medicines were available free of cost in the District Hospitals, 53 in Primary Health Centres (PHCs) and 23 in Sub Centres as per the ‘Free Drug Policy’ of the Government for the patients in the Government run hospitals.
The names of drugs available free of cost in the Government hospitals have been displayed at all the hospitals.
Sources said apart from attaching two doctors, the Health and Medical Education Department has seized prescriptions of about 250 doctors, in a clandestine operation, and were subjecting them to scrutiny following reports that some of them too had violated the Government directive on writing free drugs available in the hospitals.
“The prescriptions were being audited by a high-level team in the Directorate of Health Services and action would be taken against the doctors, who would have violated the Government policy,” sources said.
Meanwhile, the Government has issued fresh direction to all doctors in the Government Medical Colleges and tertiary hospitals to write prescriptions in Capital Letters and put their names and signatures at the bottom.
“This would help the Department to identify the doctors, who were violating the Government directive on Free Drug Policy,” sources said.
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