Bhubaneswar: State Health and Family Welfare (H&FW) department has authorised pharmacists, working at the government-run hospitals with single doctor, to dispense medicines in the latter’s absence.
The H&FW department’s Joint Secretary accorded this sole power in this regard vide a circular (No-PT3-HFW-MSII-MSNG1M-0028-2016-26512/H, Dated the 21.09.2021), an official informed Thursday.
The official circular read, “Many of the single doctor hospitals in the state are managed by the pharmacists in absence of doctors due to some reason or other. It is difficult to manage the said hospitals without any specific government orders entrusting the pharmacists for treatment of patients and list of ailments to be treated by them.”
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“In order to overcome the difficulties, the government after careful consideration has been pleased to decide that in partial modification to the Department’s earlier Order bearing No-29534, dtd-23.09.2003, the pharmacists are entrusted to dispense the following drugs for ailments as per the list enclosed for treatment in absence of the doctors,” the H&FW department’s circular stated.
Notably, the permission accorded for the purpose is limited to specific medicines. A detailed list of the minor ailments and respective drugs has been mentioned in an annexure which emphasises that the formulations are to be dispensed from ‘Niramaya’ counters alone.
PNN
