Following the verdict of March 26, 2010 by the High Court of Kerala, the Drugs Control Department of the state has started giving instructions to all the private hospitals operating own pharmacies to obtain drug licences after April 30.

However, the department has not issued any written circulars in this regard to the hospitals but instead directives were given orally, said the drugs controller in-charge M Geetha. She said there are some technical problems in giving written orders, but it will be done in future if necessary.

According to sources in the department, officials in the rank of assistant drug controllers have passed on the direction to the respective hospital managements directly and over telephone in their jurisdiction. The sources said that the new order puts the hospital managements as well as the enforcement officers in a dilemma as to how many licences the super speciality hospitals should obtain since many of them are having more than one pharmacy in their hospitals.

"The ward pharmacies attached to all the specialities in a super speciality hospital are centralized with a general pharmacy store and medicines from each of the subordinate pharmacies are dispensed by pharmacists only. So each ward pharmacy has to be reckoned as a retail outlet. If so, the hospital management has to apply for drug licences depending up on the number of ward pharmacies," an ADC told Pharmabiz. But he said so far no concrete decision on this aspect was taken by the department and the discussion is going on at the higher level.

Revi S Menon, the ADC of Eranakulam said within days of the court order, the hospitals started applying for licences. He said the narcotic permit order given to certain hospitals previously have been now stopped in the cases of those hospitals which have not taken drug licenses or applied for fresh ones. The offices of ADCs in Kerala are giving the order of allotment of narcotic drugs, ND 3, to hospitals for Morphine, Pethidine and Fentanyl Citrate for the purpose of pre-anaesthetic medication. Revi said his office received more than hundred applications with in one week of the announcement.

According to K E Mohanan, ADC Kozhikodu, instructions for fresh drugs licenses have been given to all the major and minor hospitals operating pharmacies to apply for license afresh.

When contacted M R Pradip, ADC of Thiruvananthapuram, said that he already instructed all the hospitals in his zone which need order for narcotic allotment to get the drug licence beforehand. Regarding new applications only for hospital pharmacies, he said he has not started instructing private hospitals for fresh licenses as he has not received any order from the higher authority.

The officials said the major problem the hospitals have to encounter is with regard to the appointment of qualified pharmacists in the stores as there is a severe shortage of Diploma or B Pharm holders in Kerala.

According to drugs controller Geetha, for a retail pharmacy a hospital management must remit Rs 3000 to the government treasury and the space must be of 10 square meters. For an outlet a refrigerator and inverter are made mandatory for getting licence.

About 3000 private hospitals in the state have to apply for fresh licences as per the court order or they have to close down their pharmacies after the deadline.