Several of the government health centres of Kerala are operating without ‘Pharmacist Store Keeper’ (PSK) as 80 out of the 110 sanctioned posts of PSKs in various hospitals across the state are lying vacant for the last three years.

In all the PSK vacant pharmacies, the charge of store keeper has been handed over to the senior pharmacists. Because of this situation, medicines in such pharmacies are dispensed by the staff nurses, sources from various hospitals informed Pharmabiz.

The duty of a PSK is to collect medicines and laboratory reagents from the warehouses of the state medical services corporation, and distribute them to the pharmacies and wards. In addition to this, the PSK has to maintain the stock register and document the details of the medicines procured, distributed and stocked in the hospital.

With the introduction of the Schedule H1 category drugs, the documentation work of the PSKs increased twofold. Currently, these jobs are done by the dispensing pharmacists, so they are unable to concentrate on their duties at the counters. The ultimate sufferers of the situation are the poor patients waiting in the long queue.

Over and above, more than 100 posts of ‘pharmacist’ are also lying unfilled in taluk hospitals, district hospitals, general hospitals, mental hospitals, leprosy sanatoriums and vaccine centres. The associations of pharmacists made several requests to the government to appoint adequate number of pharmacists for the smooth running of the pharmacies, but no decision has come from the government side so far. The dispensers’ community complains that the pharmacists of the government hospitals are struggling hard due to their huge workload.

When Pharmabiz sought the response of the Director of Health Services in Kerala, Dr. Ramesh, the DHS, said there was some seniority issues that have caused delay in appointing PSKs, the promotional posts of pharmacists. Now the problems have been solved and all the vacancies will be filled in soon. He said, following the appointment of PSKs, such number of positions will arise for pharmacist post. Soon, steps will be taken to recruit new pharmacists for the upcoming vacancies.

While speaking to Pharmabiz, a pharmacist with huge workload in a hospital in Palakkad district said all the posts of PSK in the district are lying vacant for three years. The taluk hospitals in Mannarkkadu, Nenmaara, Chittoor, Alathur and Ottappalam are functioning without store keepers in their pharmacies. The pharmacies at the DMO office and at the district hospital are also lacking store keepers. In short, all the government pharmacies in Palakkad district are working without ‘pharmacist store keepers’.

According to sources, the total number of PSK in the government hospitals and other centres in Kerala come around 110 and out of this 80 are not filled. PSKs are appointed in taluk hospitals, district hospitals, general hospitals, mental hospitals and in the pharmacy attached with the office of DMO. The PHCs and the CHCs have only dispensing pharmacists, no store keepers there. Places where there are no store keepers, both the work of dispensing and documentation are carried out by the pharmacist.

An average of 1500 patients visits a taluk hospital per day, and in district hospitals the number rises to 2000. Since PSKs are not in most of the hospital pharmacies, all the work from procurement to dispensing and from stocking to documentation is done by pharmacist only. As per information received from pharmacies, a taluk hospital pharmacy distributes drugs worth Rs.50 lakh in one year period.