KOCHI: The ambitious National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) has reportedly hit a roadblock, thanks to the official apathy and the wrong choice of volunteers. According to a number of pharmacists, the failure to incorporate them into the projects undertaken by the Health Department has had an adverse impact on the schemes as many valuable medicines were left rotting on the shelves of various community health centres and primary health centres.Most of the medical kits distributed by NRHM when it was launched in 2007 have been gathering dust, they said, and added that the Pharmacy Act 1948 is being violated while distributing the medicines under various schemes. “Under section 42 of Pharmacy Act 1948, only pharmacists are eligible to dispense medicines. But this law is being violated by the authorities and is entrusted to Anganawadi and Asha workers and field staff,” said a pharmacist.“Most of these kits, worth crores of rupees, were unnecessarily distributed to several community health centres and primary health centres, hence could not serve its purpose. For example, surgical kits, neonatal resuscitation, anaesthesia kit and delivery kit are not needed at these medical centres,” said a pharmacist.“Women hardly approach such CHCs and PHCs for delivery. So what was the real purpose behind distributing such kits to them?,” they asked.The pharmacists also complain that the medicines to control lifestyle diseases under the Non-Communicable Diseases Control Programme (NCDCP) in 2010, were distributed without inviting indent from the pharmacists.“It is the pharmacists who have to send the indent citing the required medicines. But that has not been done and the medicines were circulated on a mere assumption that about 40 per cent of the population is under the clutches of life style diseases. It was done unscientifically,” they said. The sources said that they had filed a Right To Information (RTI) Application about two and a half months ago.“The RTI said that the pharmacists have no role in such projects which is designed by the central government. But the second answer to our query was quite surprising. Though we do not have any role, we will be held responsible if any of the medicine exceeds the expiry date. This has put us in a dilemma.”Dr N Sreedhar, State Programme Manager, said that he could not comment on why the medicines were distributed without required indents, but said that the NRHM acts as a temporary bridge within the system.“It is the government which has to act on it,” he said.
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