Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) Karachi Chapter on Sunday welcomed Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad Khan for banning licenses for new medical stores and demanded that presence of a qualified pharmacist should be made mandatory for a medical store, and licenses of all medical stores in Sindh having no qualified pharmacist should be cancelled henceforth.
PMA Karachi General Secretary Dr Qaiser Sajjad in a statement here said that more than 95 percent of medical stores in Sindh province, especially Karachi, were being run by non-qualified persons, which was a great threat to health and lives of people. He said that no check on medical stores had resulted in rising trend of self-medication, as all types of drugs were available in these medical stores, without even production of the prescription of a registered medical practitioner.
He regretted that one could easily buy all types of drugs from painkillers to antibiotics, from vitamins to sleep pills and from appetisers to hormones from medical stores.
He said that in may cases non-qualified staff of medical stores were involved in quackery, selling fake and expired medicine and even selling wrong medicines. He said that open sale of sleep pills was behind many incidents of suicides especially amongst women.
The PMA demanded that a compressive survey on medical stores should be started in whole province, including Karachi and licenses of those medical stores running without services of qualified pharmacists should be cancelled. He also lauded the efforts of Sindh health department against fake drugs and congratulated Special Secretary Health Dr Majid for a successful raid in Mehmoodabad and recovering fake drugs worth Rs15 million.
He said that this drive should be continued to save health and lives of citizens.
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