IT News
Mumbai April 20,
Due to irregular supply of medicines from stockists in lock down period, chemists in Mumbai have began facing shortage of medicines, including life saving drugs and the medicines required for treatment of morbidity diseases.
As citizens in the city struggle to arrange for basic groceries and vegetables, now they have to deal with the lack of medicines. Many chemists across the city say that due to a break in the supply chain, they are unable to procure important medicines.
The chemists are facing difficulties in procuring the medicines. In view of the shortage, the Andheri Chemist Welfare Association has written to the Maharashtra Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) highlighting the shortage of important medicines. Chemists state that many stockists have stopped supplying medicines and quite a few have shut down completely.
Hakim Kapasi, President of the Andheri Chemist Welfare Association said that most of the pharmaceutical companies, including MNCs, have stopped the production. Some of the stockists have closed the shop. Resultantly the medicines required for high blood pressure, diabetes etc are out of stock. As such chemists are forced to recommend the medicines from other brands (different from the brands they usually take) to the consumers. Because of this shortage of supply, many people have to switch brands of their blood pressure or diabetes medicines. The stock of life savings drug is also depleting.
The chemists’ another woe is that most distributors are located at Bhiwandi in Thane district, far away from Mumbai. As such it is not possible to procure medicines from Bhiwandi daily. The chemists have to go through several checkpoints and once there, a large crowd gathers flouting social distancing norms.
Naresh Jain, Proprietor of the Rakesh Medical located at Matunga in Central Mumbai said that there is a shortage of staff to deal with consumers. The supply is irregular and instead of supply coming from stockists, the chemist shops are required to go to the stockists.
According to a chemist from Ghatkopar in North East Mumbai, there stockist is located at Dharavi in Central Mumbai. But now since Dharavi is hotspot of “COVID 19” they have to approach other stockists.
Reacting to this the officials of Food and Drugs Administration, Maharashtra said that they were monitoring the situation and the situation should be normal soon.
