The situation of two Government Siddha Medical College Hospitals in Tamil Nadu are becoming pathetic day by day because of low intake of patients and non-availability of essential drugs, it is learnt.

This is badly affecting the qualitative learning and practical experiences of the BAMS, BSMS, BUMS and all other PG courses.

Sources close to the colleges told Pharmabiz that the Medical Colleges at Palayamcottai and Annanagar in Chennai are treating very few cases for their IP wards. The number of patients in the hospitals is not matching to the patient ratio of the number of doctors posted there. If the government hospital norms are followed, one doctor should treat a minimum of 75 to 100 patients a day. These two Siddha Medical Colleges have a teaching staff strength of around 70 doctors who are supposed to attend over 5000 patients per day.  

The Central Council of Indian Medicine norms clearly mention that one  medical college hospital should have a minimum of 43 doctors which these two colleges are unable to satisfy. But sources said the OP wards of the college hospitals together get around 2000 patients daily. According to them, these institutions are unable to attract sufficient number of patients because they cannot provide all the essential drugs to the patients. In the Annanagar hospital only 15 kinds of drugs are available. The situation is grave in the PHCs, Taluk Hospitals and district Hospitals, which comprise around 700, where, in the OPDs, the number of available medicines is only 35 to 40.

Doctors and research scholars in the ISM sector said these are violation of the norms of Indian Hospital Pharmacopoeia which says about 400 medicines. The Ayush Department’s Essential Drug List mentions about 180 drugs. The research scholars and the people in the manufacturing industry allege that lack of proper monitoring is the reason for the total failure of the ISM hospitals in Tamil Nadu.

Medicines for the medical colleges are manufactured by the government manufacturing units functioning in the campus (government pharmacies). Whereas, for all other hospitals, they are supplied by Tampcol (Tamil Nadu Medicinal Plant Farms and Herbal Medicines Corporation Limited) , a corporation under the state government. But it supplies only 50 drugs including Siddha, Unani and Ayurveda. Apart from this, about 100 Siddha and Ayurveda medicines are being purchased by a separate tender process executed by the director of Indian Medicine, who is the MD of the Tampcol also.  But these tender process and the following official procedures usually take five to six months for the medicines to reach the hospitals and clinics. Every year, the medicine procurement will end by June 30 and new tender processes are executed in July.

But this year, even after the tender process had been executed 3 months ago, the other formalities have not been completed yet.  According to sources, even when the approval letter reaches the DSMOs’ offices, it will take one month to collect data and to send the order to the suppliers who in turn will take another one month for supplying the medicines. When contacted, one supplier said, all the centres will be getting the medicines only after six months of the previous supply and the poor patients are suffering. The authorities are doing nothing to thwart this delay.

Some members of the ISM Drug Manufacturers Association said some private companies which are supplying medicines to government hospitals on contract, have now stopped their supply due to many reasons. Last week, the directorate of Indian System of Medicines has sent a circular to all the DSMOs to place order for medicines with one Netaji Pharmaceuticals, Dindigul. The manufacturers alleged that Netaji Pharmaceuticals has no prior experience in supplying huge quantity of variety of drugs to hospitals or other agencies.

Government of Tamil Nadu has appointed a new commissioner and managing director for the directorate of Indian systems of medicine a few months ago. But whenever Pharmabiz tried to contact him, he was reluctant to respond. Instead, his personal staff would divert the phone to some unimportant officials in the department.