BHUBANESWAR: Amid shortage of doctors in public healthcare facilities, the State government has permitted pharmacists to treat minor ailments and dispense drugs for certain diseases in hospitals. An order to this effect was issued by the Health and Family Welfare department in partial modification to its previous directive in 2003.
The department has acknowledged that many of the single-doctor hospitals in the State are being managed by pharmacists for which it was necessary to allow them to dispense drugs for certain ailments for treatment of patients.
Accordingly, pharmacists have been allowed to dispense medicines for treatment in minor ailments such as malaria, fever, upper respiratory infection, skin diseases (scabies and ring worm), helminthiasis, diarrhoea, APD, minor injuries without medicolegal cases (MLC), superficial burns without MLC and drainage of abscess.
In DCs and non-communicable diseases, the pharmacists have been authorised to dispense previously prescribed drugs or any medicine prescribed by e-Sanjibani or tele-medicine. The pharmacists have been allowed to dispense only government-supplied medicines from Niramaya.