Food Safety and Drug Administration raids at low-cost medicine stores on KGMU campus in Lucknow
Reports of sale of narcotics/scheduled drugs without prescription from AMRIT stores on the campus of the King George’s Medical University (KGMU) compelled the Food Safety and Drug Administration (FSDA) of UP to investigate whether the drugs were being sold to genuine patients or not.
On Wednesday, a team of FSDA caught medicines without proper bills/prescriptions being sold and drugs being stored improperly at the AMRIT (Affordable Medicines and Reliable Implants for Treatment) medical stores, which give medicines at discounted rates to patients admitted at the KGMU.
Rama Shankar, assistant commissioner, FSDA, said, “We are looking into the details provided by the staff there. We are also looking at the system of drug sales and checking why prescriptions were not retained as per the rules.”
He said both the AMRIT stores on the campus were inspected after a complaint was filed with the department. One of these stores is located at the Queen Mary’s hospital and the other in the Old OPD block, he said.
“Retaining a copy of prescriptions and bills while selling narcotics is mandatory as per rules to check the misuse of drugs. The staff at the stores claimed they had all the bills. We are waiting till Monday for them to produce all the documents. Only after that we will affix accountability and take suitable action,” said Rama Shankar.
A show cause notice based on the findings of the raids would be issued on Saturday, he said. This notice, he said, would demand explanation regarding sale of drugs without prescription, improper storage of medicines that could lead to reduction of their efficacy, and other anomalies found.
Six samples of different scheduled medicines were also collected for lab testing, as the team suspected they were of substandard quality.
When contacted, KGMU authorities said they did not run the stores directly and had asked the store in-charge for an explanation.