The government has initiated the process of introducing generic medicines in state-run hospitals by opening fair price shops through public-private partnership (PPP). These outlets are selling generic drugs at a whopping rebate on the maximum retail price (MRP), earning kudos from the people, but annoying a major section of drug sellers. The government has announced that more fair price medicine shops would opened. “If the government can make the switchover, it would ensure cheap medicines for poor people,” said renowned orthopedic surgeon Sunil Thakur. The fair price shop at the Seth Sukhlal Karnani Memorial Hospital (SSKM), the state’s only government-run super-speciality hospital, is selling generic drugs at a 67.25% rebate. It is the eighth such shop in the state. With plans to launch 35 fair price shops in the first phase, the health department has asked the shops to store 142 types of generic medicines.

“Quality control would be an issue, and the government has to be smart about sniffing out spurious medicines,” Thakur warned.

Noted cardiologist Dipankar Mukherjee said: “It’s a challenge mainly because it’s very hard to change one’s natural habits. For long, doctors have been prescribing branded drugs, while the people are also habituated to taking branded medicines.”

“The medicine outlets also lacked adequate trained pharmacists capable of giving the precise medicines to customers if physicians prescribe generic drugs”, he said. There is reason for caution, going by the experience in neighbouring Bangladesh. A senior official at a drug makers’ body in Bangladesh said: “Our country had initiated the process about 30 years ago. But the quality of generic drugs was not up to the mark.”

“When a doctor prescribes a branded medicine the onus is on him, but when he prescribes drugs with generic names, the onus of providing the right medicines shifts to the pharmacist, who is often a mere shopkeeper. Thus it compromises people’s heath,” the official said. West Bengal, however, can draw encouragement from Rajasthan, which successfully implemented the policy of promoting cheap generic medicines. The Mamata Banerjee government has got some success in lowering medicine prices. The state’s druggists association, which was earlier up in arms, has now asked its members to sell generic medicines with a higher rebate than the discounted rates at fair price shops.

Claiming it was not against introducing cheaper drugs, the Bengal Chemists and Druggist Association (BCDA), which has more than 35,000 members across the state under its umbrella, said the government should make the programme more “practicable”. “First, the doctors have to start prescribing generic names. Providing single-molecule generic drugs would not be difficult for a pharmacist, but difficulties would crop up in case of combined products,” BCDA general secretary Tushar Chakraborty said. Chakraborty said doctors of even government-run hospitals were prescribing medicines for critical patients which were currently not available in fair price outlets.

It was difficult to treat critical patients with these 142 specified drugs, while the fair price shops were also selling medicines at varying prices in Kolkata and the districts. A pharmacist at the fair price shop at the SSKM however claimed they were meeting around 97% of the patients’ requirements from the specified generic drugs.

Minister of State for Health Chandrima Bhattacharya parried questions. “I cannot reveal the government programmes in detail,” Bhattacharya said, adding that no government in the state earlier had tried to reduce the price of medicines. On the flip side, the transition attempt could prove costly for a section of medical representatives, as sales of a few branded drugs have shrunk dramatically.”I learnt that recently some drug companies, engaged mainly in manufacturing general pharmaceutical products, are reporting low sales of their branded products. They are even not being able to set sales targets due to a severe demand fall,” said a medical representative working with Zydus Cadila. He said there was ground to fear loss of jobs.

Source: IANS

Health Secretary Satish Tiwari, who visited the hospital and met superintendent Tanal Kanti Gosh, said the probe would start soon. ‘We have sought a report,’ he said. Terming the fire fighting set-up in the hospital as ‘rudimentary’, Tiwari said: ‘A lot of money will be needed to upgrade it.’

Around 80 children admitted in the Allex ward of the hospital were evacuated through the back door after fire was noticed around 10 p.m. Smoke was billowing from the seminar room on the main building’s fourth floor.

Fire Services Minister Javed Khan said the fire was caused by a short circuit in an air-conditioner. Four fire tenders rushed to the spot and doused the flames. A fire incident had occurred in the same hospital March 21 and dozens of critical patients had to be evacuated from the emergency OPD.

In December last year, 94 patients and staffers died when a blaze in the basement of AMRI Hospital here engulfed its annexe building with noxious smoke.

Source: IANS

“The fire was caused by a short circuit in an air-conditioning machine. The fire has been doused,” said Fire Services Minister Javed Ahmed Khan. A fire incident had happened in the same hospital March 21 and dozens of critical patients had to be evacuated from the emergency OPD after thick smoke bellowed from there. In December last year, 94 patients and staffers died when a blaze in the basement Kolkata’s well-known AMRI (Advanced Medicare Research Institute) Hospital engulfed its annexe building with noxious smoke, trapping helpless patients while most doctors and others fled to safety.

Source: IANS

 The former middle-distance runner, who had won the 4x400m relay gold in the 2006 Doha Asian Games, has been accused of being a male and of allegedly raping her live-in partner. Her 30-year-old line-in partner, an estranged woman, had alleged that Pinki was in fact a male following which the athlete was made to undergo gender determination tests.

The formed gold medallist has had a horrid time. She was kept in a male jail, forced to take gender determination tests and even had an MMS clip released while undergoing one of these tests. The treatment meted out to her came under severe criticism from various avenues. All her gender tests were inconclusive and the courts deemed that she was ‘incapable’ of rape. The earlier verdict said that she was genetically almost male.

Is Pinki male or female? The answer isn’t that simple.

The reptile was seen in Seth Sukhlal Karnani Memorial (SSKM) Hospital Saturday night. It was later tracked and killed. “It is true that a snake was spotted in the ward,” said Tamal Kanti Ghosh, medical superintendent of the hospital. After the incident, orders were given to clear the bushes around the ward, he said.

Source: IANS

“I am not male. I have always been female. As a child, I used to look very sweet. I was a normal girl, like any other, and I wore clothes like that (pointing to my salwar kameez). But now I only wear these clothes (pointing to her track-pants and polo shirt). I look more male now because, as part of my training to compete in international athletics, I used to be regularly administered testosterone injections like other female participants. It was called Russian medicine. I was told that it was necessary to take these and I never questioned whether these were legal or not. I was focused on winning and did whatever I was asked to do by my trainers, who knew what was best for me. But after that my voice became deeper and I grew more body hair.”

Pinki also accused the police of manhandling her and said she was forced to undergo multiple gender determination tests. “When they arrested me, I was led away by two male police, who grabbed me by the arms. I told them, ‘I’m not going to run away. Please don’t manhandle me’. But they didn’t listen. I was also kept in the men’s prison, though in a separate cell. I was assigned one female guard, along with one male guard, during the 26 days that I was in jail. I did not want to undergo a gender test because it is humiliating. But they forcefully subjected me to it against my wishes. I was taken to a hospital and given an injection to make me fall asleep. When I awoke, I found my hands and feet tied to the bed and all my clothes removed.”

The formed gold medallist had a horrid time in recent weeks. She was kept in a male jail, forced to take gender determination tests and even had an MMS clip released while undergoing one of these tests. The treatment meted out to her came under severe criticism from various avenues. All her gender tests were inconclusive and the courts deemed that she was ‘incapable’ of rape. The final verdict said that she was genetically almost male.

Is Pinki male or female? The answer isn’t that simple.

She said that Avtar Singh had some land dispute with Pramanik, for which he needed to prove that Pinki was a male. This comes after Bengal sports minister Madan Mitra claimed a few day back that a person who was arrested in 2004 had tried to grab the lands of the sportspersons allocated by the Left Front government in 2006. 

Singh’s wife Sikdar had spoken out against her arrest said that her husband was not involved and the current regime was trying to implicate him falsely. But Pinki’s former partner described the story which led to Pramanik’s arrest. “After a tiff over payments, Singh told me over phone we need to show the world Pinki is a male,” the woman told a leading daily, hinting that the plan was to portray Pramanik as a fraud and pack her off to prison. 

“Their problem started after Pinki demanded more money for the plot of land where Singh is building a high-rise. Singh paid her a part of the Rs 30 lakh Pinki demanded but their bickering continued,” she said.

The formed gold medallist had a horrid time in recent weeks. She was kept in a male jail, forced to take gender determination tests and even had an MMS clip released while undergoing one of these tests. The treatment meted out to her came under severe criticism from various avenues. All her gender tests were inconclusive and the courts deemed that she was ‘incapable’ of rape. The final verdict said that she was genetically almost male.

Is Pinki male or female? The answer isn’t that simple.

“The person did not put me under any anaesthesia. I suffered severe pain during the stitching,” Sardar alleged. Commenting on the allegation, SSKM director Pradip Mitra said it should not have happened in normal situation. ”Some group-D staff members are trained for stitching wounds, mainly for emergency situations. But in normal situation, a group D staff should not have done this,” Mitra said. He refused to comment further, saying: “A thorough probe is required.”

Also read: UP Health Minister suspends ward boy and CMS

Source: IANS

“Normal Karyotypes for females contain two X chromosomes and are denoted as 46, XX. Males have an X and a Y chromosome and are denoted 46, XY. Tests reports revealed that Pramanik has predominantly male features. The test reports – along with our observations – have been submitted to the court,” a member of the medical board was quoted as saying by the daily.

“At the same time, Pramanik has the disorder of sexual development. In medical science not everything can be said in black and white. This case has shades of grey.  Pramanik does not have all the features that a normal adult male has,” he added.

The formed gold medallist had a horrid time in recent weeks. She was kept in a male jail, forced to take gender determination tests and even had an MMS clip released while undergoing one of these tests. The treatment meted out to her came under severe criticism from various avenues. All her gender tests were inconclusive and the courts deemed that she was ‘incapable’ of rape. 

Is Pinki male or female? The answer isn’t that simple.

The formed gold medalist had a horrid time in recent weeks. She was kept in a male jail, forced to take gender determination tests and even had an MMS clip released while undergoing one of these tests. The treatment meted out to her came under severe criticism from various avenues. All her gender tests were inconclusive and the courts deemed that she was ‘incapable’ of rape. 

Is Pinki male or female? The answer isn’t that simple.