Health Department move to get rid of drugs past expiry date

To tackle this, the department has constituted condemnation committees at the district and institutional level.
Image used for representational purpose. (File photo)
Image used for representational purpose. (File photo)

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Taking a major step towards modernising pharmacies in state-run hospitals, the Health Department has decided to deal with the menace created by drugs past the expiry date. According to the department, the dead stock inventory of low quality/blacklisted/expired drugs and consumables is found to be consuming space and is proving a burden on healthcare institutions. 

To tackle this, the department has constituted condemnation committees at the district and institutional level. The said committees will have to work closely with the Kerala Medical Services Corporation Ltd (KMSCL) for proper disposal of expired medicines. 

“The pharmacies of state-run hospitals desperately need a makeover. The problem with them is that they suffer from space constraints. The reason for the same is the dead stock inventory of poor quality/blacklisted/expired drugs and consumables,” said an officer of the Health Department. 

According to the officer, the space taken up by condemnable stock can be used to store medicines having shelf life. It is learnt that the respective District Medical Officers have been asked to issue directives to the primary health centres, community health centres, taluk headquarters hospital, district hospital/general hospital, medical college hospitals, speciality and super speciality hospitals to scrutinise and quantify the expired medications in its pharmacies. 

“The scrutiny and quantification of expired medicines will be carried out by an institutional condemnation committee that is chaired by the head of the institution  concerned. The inventory of the same will have to be prepared by crosschecking it with the KMSCL’s Drug Distribution and Management System ,” said the officer. 

Once the institutional condemnation committee drafts the list of expired medications available with it, the District Level Condemnation Committee chaired by the DMO (Health) will finalise it.

The committee should coordinate its verification with the District Warehouse Manager concerned. In the case of disposal of expired medicines, the liability of the same lies with the KMSCL and for the same the managing director of the institution has been directed by the department to hire storage spaces regionally/district wise to store the medicines. After consolidating and categorising the medicines, the KMSCL should have to dispose of it properly. 

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