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Thursday March 28, 2024

Unavailability of medicines at RIC irks patients

By Muhammad Qasim
March 17, 2019

Rawalpindi : The unavailability of medicines at Rawalpindi Institute of Cardiology (RIC) in town has been irking hundreds of follow up patients badly who have to purchase them privately from open market.

As per policy, the cardiac patients who need medicines regularly after a procedure at RIC are given medicines free of cost from the institute though the patients have not been getting all medicines from the institute and the RIC officials at medicines distribution platforms inform them that the RIC is facing shortage of medicines.

I have been given only two medicines out of eight medicines prescribed by the senior medical officer at RIC and asked to purchase the rest from open market, said Raja Khalid, aged 45 who had undergone a cardiac surgery at RIC.

Talking to ‘The News’, he said at the previous visit, the RIC provided him four medicines out of eight prescribed by the doctor.

It is important that a number of follow-up patients have been complaining of shortage of medicines at RIC though according to senior officials at RIC, the institute has not been facing shortage of any medicine related to cardiac health. All medicines related to heart are being given to all follow-up patients free of cost except for those who are coming to the RIC from catchment areas in Khyber-Pakhtun-khwah or AJK like Chitral, Swat or Gilgit Baltistan, said Medical Superintendent at RIC Dr. Shoaib Khan while talking to ‘The News’ on Saturday.

He added one of the medicines has not been approved by the drug testing laboratory so the RIC is unable to give it to its patients while few medicines prescribed to some patients which are not directly related to heart and are prescribed for some other co-morbidity like neurology are not available at the RIC.

He said the staff at RIC puts all its efforts to provide all medicines free of cost to all its patients on regular basis and it is done properly after testing of all drugs from the DTL.

Pharmacist at RIC Iraj informed ‘The News’ on Saturday that there is no shortage of medicines at RIC as such though few medicines may be in the process of getting approval by the DTL and these may not be available for patients occasionally.

A number of heart patients who have undergone treatment at RIC are of the view that the RIC is considered as a model healthcare facility for treatment and management of cardiovascular diseases in the province in public sector and patients’ complaints regarding unavailability of medicines should be taken seriously by the hospital management.