The government Ayush hospitals in Tamil Nadu now face a delay of drugs availability as the austerity measures adopted by the Tamil Nadu Medical Plant Farms & Herbal Medicine Corporation Limited (TAMPCOL) by assigning the postal department to transport packs of medicines to Ayush hospitals pose various logistics problems.

Most of the health centres in the urban and rural areas have not received the second quarter (July, August, September) delivery of medicine packs so far.

The transfer of contract for transportation of medicines has come in the wake of higher rates quoted by private transport companies who have been doing the services for years, sources informed.

Because of the inordinate delay in transporting medicinal products from the corporation premises to the hospitals and PHCs, the services of the traditional healthcare institutions are badly affected. The worst affected are the poor patients.

According to an NGO engaged in the promotion of traditional medicines in Tamil Nadu, the new system of logistics of medicine bundles from TAMPCOL to the hospitals in each district takes about 20 days. This causes a long delay for the packs to reach their destinations, hence the drug availability in the hospitals is in troubles most often.

The Chennai based NGO, Centre for Traditional Medicines and Research (CTMR), informed Pharmabiz that the logistics problems have also affected the packaging and safe movement of products from the Corporation premises and the packs of materials take a period of 15 to 20 days to reach the hospitals.

The secretary of CTMR, Dr T Thirunarayanan, a Siddha expert and special invitee to CCIM, said most of the Ayush products are in liquid forms like medicated oil, lehyams, arishtams, kashaayams, etc, and because of the transporting difficulty a large number of bundles of medicines are piled up in the store rooms of TAMPCOL.

Majority of the requirement of Siddha, Ayurveda and Unani medicines for the Ayush hospitals in the state are supplied by TAMPCOL. It has the licence to produce 62 Siddha drugs, 14 Ayurveda drugs and 7 Unani medicines.