Jaipur: The health department on Thursday suspended a govt doctor and a pharmacist of Sikar district for allegedly prescribing a cough syrup containing dextromethorphan to children, a drug which cannot be prescribed to those under four years. This follows the deaths of two children who allegedly died in Sikar and Bharatpur districts after taking ‘Dextromethorphan HBr Syrup’.In its Thursday edition, TOI had in a report — ‘State govt failed to heed previous cough syrup warnings, say activists’ — highlighted the death of children allegedly after taking the syrup in Delhi in 2021, and how the state govt had failed to learn from the incident.
Acting on the news report, the health department on Thursday issued fresh guidelines for prescribing the cough syrup and suspended a doctor and a pharmacist for allegedly prescribing the medicine to children. The department’s director of public health, Dr Ravi Prakash Sharma, said action has been taken to suspend Dr Palak and pharmacist Pappu Soni for prescribing the syrup to a child at Hathideh PHC in Ajitgarh block of Sikar.Along with necessary action in the case, the department also issued an advisory on following protocol of providing medicines to patients only with prescriptions.It also advised patients against taking medicines without medical consultation, and called for complete compliance of doctors with the advisory.
The department also clarified that some children who had consumed the syrup had survived. A 30-year-old patient Monu Joshi, a resident of Kalsada, Bharatpur, had come to CHC on Sept 25, with cough, cold, and fever on Sept 25. The doctor had prescribed the syrup to him along with other medicines. When his three-year-old son Gagan caught cold and pneumonia, Joshi gave the syrup to the child without a doctor’s advice.The child’s condition worsened and he was taken to a doctor in Mahua, who referred him to JK Lon, Jaipur. His condition improved and he was discharged on Sept 27.
