THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The unavailability of medicines at the pharmacy of the Regional Cancer Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, has put the patients in dire straits. The state’s premier cancer hospital started facing medicine shortage at its pharmacy following Kerala Medical Services Corporation Limited’s (KMSCL) procurement issues. While RCC authorities claimed that alternative arrangements have been made to help the patients, the ground reality is that these measures have been half-hearted as certain medications remain unavailable, forcing them to buy them from outside stores.
“Not all oncology drugs are being made available through alternative arrangements. Thus, patients belonging to the low-income group who could have bought the medications either free of cost or at discounted prices have to buy the same from outside after paying the full prices,” said a source with RCC.
According to RCC, the alternative arrangements made by it following the medicine shortage include the local purchase of medicines for the pharmacy and allowing patients to buy medicines from the nearby In-House Drug Bank and Karunya Pharmacy without paying money. The amount will be reimbursed by the RCC later.
However, patients have complained these arrangements have not been able to fulfil their requirements and that they are forced to buy medicines from outside, incurring huge expenditure. Despite this, RCC Director Dr Rekha Nair insists the alternative arrangements have indeed been a success.“They were found to be helpful to patients. We have received no complaints so far. If complaints regarding the unavailability of any medicine come to our notice, we will address the same,” said Rekha.
As per sources, the issue is not going to ease soon as the KMSCL had to retender procurement and it might take at least a month to complete the process. Asked about this, KMSCL general manager Dileep Kumar SR said, “KMSCL is entrusted with procuring 111 oncology medicines for RCC through tender proceedings. For 85 medicines, we have found eligible bidders. In the case of remaining ones, alternative arrangements have been made.”
As high-end and high-value drugs have been mobilised, patients will not be affected, he added. In the first week of this month, the State Human Rights Commission had sought a report from the RCC director on the complaints that some essential medicines for cancer treatment were unavailable at its pharmacy.
The commission pointed out that the pharmacy had run out of stock of medicines like methotrexate and mercaptopurine for childhood acute lymphocytic leukaemia (ALL), a type of cancer of the blood and bone marrow, thus putting the parents of child patients in a spot of bother.