Osmania General Hospital reels under shortage of drugs

Hyderabad: In the past few months, several hospitals and health centres have been the target of a severe shortage of medicines, just like Osmania General Hospital (OGH) also facing the same issue.

Locals are complaining about the unavailability of drugs required for their treatment and have been advised by the hospital staff to buy the medicines from outside or any other private hospital. The financially challenged patients are forced to get the medicines at a high rate outside the hospital.

At around 16.6%, Hyderabad has the highest number of patients suffering from diabetes in the city. These patients, however, are not getting the required drugs to treat the disease. 

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Diseases such as blood pressure, liver, lungs and heart are the types that need immediate medical attention. However, not getting the drugs for these diseases may lead to serious health consequences for the patient. As many as 58 different types of drugs are unavailable in the hospital pharmacy.

For several months, these meds have not been restocked back at the hospital and on the other hand, injections are also part of the list. Heart attacks have become more common, which has led to many deaths. Metoprolol injection is a useful drug which can reduce the risk of death from an acute heart attack. It is given to people who have already had a heart attack. This medicine is a beta-blocker. It works by affecting the response to nerve impulses in certain parts of the body, like the heart.

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Due to a lack of availability of alcohol withdrawal drugs, doctors at the hospital are having difficulty handling patients with alcohol addiction.

However, upon being questioned about the situation, the hospital superintendent Dr B Nagender denied the allegation and told TNIE, "there is no shortage of drugs and that alternatives for all the medicines are available. Fancy items and combination drugs like Tab Norflox TZ are not available. Tab Chymoral fort which is used to treat pain and swelling is not an important drug. We have a lot of anti-inflammatory drugs in that case. Other than that, all the necessary generic medicines are there."