Lucknow: The Department of Food Safety and Drug Administration took action against 12 private hospitals on Sept 30 and Oct 1, after finding various levels of non-compliance with rules in their pharmacies.A spokesperson from the department said that teams of 26 drug inspectors visited the pharmacies of 12 private hospitals in Luckow and checked availability of pharmacists, medical oxygen, billing and stock records of life-saving medicines, cold-chain maintenance, storage arrangements, quality of medicines, and the rates at which hospitals purchase medicines and sell them to patients.The department said that in some hospitals, it found a large gap between the purchase price and the sale price of important medicines. The inspection teams collected 38 samples of such medicines for quality analysis.The OPD pharmacy of one hospital was closed after it could not provide the stock ledger related to medicines, patients’ IPD files, and other mandatory documentation for purchase and sale of Schedule H1 medicines. At another hospital, records related to purchase and sale of medicines were not produced and medicines were found stored at two different locations.At one hospital, the team found a difference between physical stock and recorded stock across various batches of some medicines. Differences were also found between the batch numbers of dispensed medicines and the batch numbers recorded in the related sale invoices. Several pharmacies were found to have a difference in recorded stocks of medicines.One hospital was found to have purchased Schedule X medicines in the name of a doctor rather than under the prescribed licence.The department said that the statewide campaign started on Sept 24 and in the first phase, the pharmacies of 21 govt and private medical colleges in 16 districts were inspected. At many locations, the arrangements for cold-chain management and maintenance of medicines were not found satisfactory, for which show-cause notices are being issued to the concerned hospitals. Notices are also being sent to medicine manufacturers.
