Medanta, Artemis hospitals in Ggn lose pharmacy license

The Food and Drugs Administration of Haryana government suspended the licenses for violating certain norms on billing and storage of medicines

GURUGRAM: The Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) of Haryana government has suspended the pharmacy licenses of two major hospitals in the Millennium City - Medanta and Artemis. The pharmacy of Medanta has been ordered to suspend sales for three days while Artemis will be shut down for seven days for violating certain norms on billing and storage of medicines.

These two private hospitals failed to give a proper reply to the FDA notices issued to them on November 4 on their pharmacies not conforming to the rules of the Central Government’s drug and cosmetic act.

In a raid conducted by the drug officers on October 27 at the leading private hospitals in Gurugram, the officers had observed that private hospitals like Medanta, Fortis and Artemis were not following the rules registered under section 65 of the drug and cosmetic rules of 1945. According to the officers, the hospitals’ pharmacies could not submit a proper serial number of entries of the medicinal drugs issued, date of supply of the drugs, names and addresses of the patients along with the prescriber of the drugs and batch numbers and date of expiry for the drugs.

“During our raids on October 27 we found that these Private hospitals were not transparent in the specifying the drugs. After the initial inquiry, we had issued them notices. As we have found the reply of Medanta and Artemis was not satisfactory, the decision was taken to suspend their licenses for certain days as penalty. We have also issued warning to other major private hospitals to be fair and transparent in their dealings,” Amandeep Chauhan, Senior Drug Inspector in Gurugram. He further added that regular raids will also be carried in the future to ensure compliance with rules and regulations for pharmacies in the city.