In order to enhance the capacity of sampling and testing of medicines in Rajasthan, three more drug testing laboratories will be established at Udaipur, Jodhpur and Bikaner by June this year. About Rs. 18 crore has been allocated by the state government for this purpose. Currently, there is only one drug testing laboratory in the state which is located at Jaipur.
At present, the drug testing lab at Jaipur gets around 500 samples and testing of samples takes one month to three months time. Says Ajay Jain, state drug controller, Rajasthan Drug Control Department, "Around 60, 000 brands of drugs are available in the market and drug samples are collected based on the random survey. With the coming up of three state drug testing labs in Rajasthan, testing would be done in a mere 15 days time and the capacity would gradually increase over a period of time. The enhancement in the capacities will reduce the downtime significantly."
There are around 20,000 retail establishments and 16,000 drug distribution counters in government hospitals across the state which are closely monitored by the state drug regulators. "Besides checking the quality of drugs, we are planning to appoint 20 drug control officers to enhance the existing manpower which currently stands at 84 for the entire state," Jain adds.
In order to further strengthen the drug regulatory mechanism, a team of drug control officials from the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) office along with the Rajasthan drug control officials had done random sampling of medicines at drug stores and at public healthcare institutions which are implementing the Rajasthan Free Drug Distribution Scheme.
Around 60 drug samples were collected during the random sampling in December 2013 which was part of the exercise meant to keep a stringent check on the quality of medicines through surveillance by the DCGI officials.
Says Dr G N Singh, DCGI, "The exercise of doing surveillance through random sampling in drug stores and public healthcare institutions was done in Rajasthan with the aim of protecting patient's rights.”
Free drug distribution scheme
The state has been providing free medicines under the Rajasthan Free Drug Distribution Scheme since its launch in October 2, 2011 through Rajasthan Medical Services Corporation (RMSC). The scheme has been able to address issues like insufficient supply of drugs at several places and shortage of doctors, para-medical staff and pharmacists mainly at the primary health centres in remote villages.
In order to increase the reach of the scheme, the state health ministry is in the process of appointing pharmacists in various government healthcare institutions in addition to 1500 appointed last year. This will ensure that each DDC is manned by one pharmacist. Rajasthan has a total of 17,298 healthcare institutions including primary health centres (PHCs), community health centres (CHCs), sub centres and government hospitals.
The scheme aims to provide essential medicines free, and the others practically free, to anyone walking into a government-run health institute. With Rs 681.20 crore spent so far, it is estimated to have benefited over 14 crore people in two years.
The Rajasthan Medical Services Corporation (RMSC), formed to implement the scheme and steer the state towards a Right to Health, cites studies to point out that expenditure on medicines accounts for about 50 to 80 per cent of the total cost of treatment in India. As per the WHO, 65 per cent of the Indian population lacks regular access to essential medicines.
Officials say that since the scheme started, there has been a substantial increase in the number of girl children in the state (from 921 in 2001 to 928 in 2011, with the rise in urban areas being 890 to 914). They are even hopeful of the state’s sex ratio improving drastically as a result. At least 17 state governments and several countries including Nepal and Canada have also expressed interest in replicating it.
In the year of its launch, 200 generic medicines, surgical and sutures were available at RMSC drug distribution centres. The list went up to 400 last year and 600 this year. In this year’s budget, the CM announced an allied scheme of free medical tests, leading up to a planned Right to Health Act.
Continuing education programmes
As a step towards updating the knowledge of pharmacists in line with pharma industry needs, Rajasthan Pharmacy Council (RPC) is also planning to launch new Continuing Educational Programmes (CEPs) this year.
Says Alok Bhargava, member, RPC, "We are planning to devise new industry based CEPs which will help pharmacists to update and follow standards in pharmacy practice existing globally."
The council had conducted five CEPs last year and has witnessed an overwhelming response from the community pharmacists. "The meeting will also discuss the budget for conducting CEPs so that it can cater to over 40,000 registered pharmacists in the state. Budget is not a constraint for us as we do a good number of registrations on an annual basis. With a total of 41,000 registrations till date, RPC does 3500 registrations on an annual basis," he informs.
Taking into consideration the pharmacist's role in serving the industry and trade in a professional and ethical manner, Pharmacy Council of India (PCI) is also looking into the quality assurance aspect in CEPs. As a part of the quality assurance programme, PCI is working on models to strengthen CEPs with certain variations to customize it according to the needs of pharmacists in various parts of the country.
CEPs bear importance in the current scenario as clinical services provided by pharmacists are fairly new to India and there is also a shortage of clinical pharmacy trainers. Besides this, expansion of pharmacy education in India marks an uneven distribution of colleges across states with quality of education being variable.