40 Community pharmacies to be opened

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Following the success of the state-of-the-art Karunya Community Pharmacy here by the Kerala Medical Services Corporation Ltd (KMSCL), around 40 pharmacies will be opened in other Medical Colleges and Government and Taluk Hospitals in the state. The government has planned to start the community pharmacies as part of regulating the prices of life-saving drugs.KMSCL managing director Biju Prabhakar said that all the pharmacies would have surveillance cameras and would be fully-computerised.  The functioning of the pharmacies will be centrally-monitored so that those approaching the pharmacies are well-treated.“As part of branding the Karunya pharmacies, there will be uniqueness at all centres. Architects are invited to design the pharmacies in a unique way,” he said.New pharmacies will come up at some hospitals and there are also plans to redesign the existing pharmacies. Pre-fabricated materials will be used for the new pharmacies. The fully air-conditioned pharmacies will ensure whether the heat generated from the refrigerators is directed outside the building.When a prescription is given to a staff, selection of the drug from the rack, cross-checking, billing, payment and dispatch will be done by a chain of staff. This will help in speedy delivery of the drugs.According to Prabhakar, selection of architect and design would be completed by the end of this month. All the pharmacies are expected to start functioning within six months, he said. The total cost of procurement of drugs to these pharmacies would be around Rs 250 crore. For the modernisation and setting up of the pharmacies, the estimated cost is Rs 56 crore.The medicines sold through the community pharmacies will be priced 20 to 22 per cent less than the market price. The KMSCL is directly purchasing drugs from the manufacturing companies, avoiding middlemen and this helps in providing medicines at a reasonable rate.