Tripura health department has faced a serious challenge to get supply of adequate generic medicines in the local store from Bureau of Pharma PSUs of India (BPPI) for last two months despite instruction from the chief minister.

According to report, Tripura State Cooperative Marketing Federation (MARKFED), the nodal generic medicine supplier to the state hospitals from BPPI store in Gurgaon has been delaying the process of procurement of generic medicines for some unconvincing reasons over last three months.

The BJP-IPFT government after assuming office on March 9 last has decided to ensure cent per cent hospital prescription in both outdoor and indoor to be only in generic name of medicines instead of writing in brand names, which reduce the cost of medicines at least three times.

The chief minister two months ago had met union Chemical and Fertilizer Minister Ananth Kumar to get the immediate supply of all 700 generic medicines and surgical items of BPPI in Tripura stores. The union minister had also agreed to ensure the supply provided to have a clearing and forwarding set up here under MARKFED.

“The Chief Minister made the commitment that soon after his return, ministry will get the proposal for setting up of clearing and forwarding unit in the state. However, despite clear instruction from the chief minister to send the proposal, MARKFED did not do it till date and was unnecessarily delaying the process to help some brands of medicine,” stated a senior official of the state government.

He further stated that Tripura at present is having only 22 generic counters in the different level of hospitals out of around 200, which has been decided to be extended in 138 more soon but until the supply of all medicines and surgical items are assured it would not be possible to do.

Tripura MARKFED is procuring only around 300 generic items out of 700 BPPI supplies, which is not served the purpose of major treatment and in spite of restrictions; the doctors have to write the medicines in brand name in most of the cases. As a result, the patients are forced to by costly medicines for simple treatment.

“To ensure the prescription in generic name, we have started prescription audit in the hospitals and some more actions are on card to improve healthcare service in Tripura. Already we have ensured 100 percent medicine supply from the hospital in case of indoor patients and in case the particular medicine is not found available in the hospital store, the patient party will get reimbursement from the hospital authority on production of original bills,” said health minister Sudip Roy Barman.