CHANDIGARH: PGI’s first own pharmacy store is expected to come up by next year. The project has already been delayed by a year due to pending engineering and civil wo rk.
It has been decided that the drug store will be set up at the Advanced Trauma Centre and storage for the goods is being built near the drug de-addiction centre of the PGI.
Three years ago, the PGI received the approval to come up with its own pharmacy store. This pharmacy store was to offer 50% discount on most of the medicines including the branded and non branded products. The store— a Rs 15 crore project— has been awaited since a while for affordable health care.
“There is a huge discount in the prices of the medicines as we are not involving any middle man. We are not businesspeople. Accordingly, we will also start free first-aid consumables,” said Dr Arvind Rajwanshi, chairman of the pharmacy project, PGI.
PGI has Affordable Medicines and Reliable Implants for Treatment (AMRIT)—a medical store and government of India’s initiative— that offers highly subsidized drugs. However, the store does not have all the prescribed medicines and the patients prefer to buy from stores which have all the medicines available even if they offer no discount.
