Drug stores near hospitals may remain open by rotation after midnight

While the Dhaka South City Corporation maintains its decision to close drug stores at midnight, which came as part of the government's austerity measures, it is considering keeping hospital-adjacent drug stores open by rotation at night from 1 September.

The South City Corporation is scheduled to sit with the medicine shop owners' association at 11am Thursday to discuss the matter. However, neighbourhood drug stores will close after 12am.

Lutfor Rahman Khan, president of Dhaka Medical College Medicine Shop Owners Association told The Business Standard, Dhaka Medical College Hospital is open all night and patients need medicine all night.

"Patients will be in danger if drug shops are closed after 12am. So the shop should be kept open all night by rotation if necessary. We will decide our demands and a possible roster system for drug stores in the meeting," he said.

"There are around 100 drug shops around Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH). Of these, the stores which keep emergency medicines, will be kept open all night by rotation," Lutfor Rahman said, adding, "In that way a store will be open all night for 4-5 days in a month."

"Some shops want to stay open all night. We will meet among ourselves and inform the city corporation about which stores can be kept open," he further said.

South City Corporation issued a notification on 22 August directing the closure of general drug stores at 12am and hospital-adjacent drug stores at 2am from 1 September to save electricity.

After this decision, which drew a lot of criticism, Health Minister Zahid Maleque on 25 August told journalists, "The sale of medicines and pharmaceutical items at drug stores will be allowed 24/7 as it is an emergency service. We did not give any instructions regarding the closure of pharmacies after midnight. The city corporation decided to restrict medicine sales after midnight without any discussion with us."

He added that they will talk with the city corporations about this.

However, it is not known whether South City Corporation had any discussion with the Ministry of Health before implementing the decision.

In a press release, released on Wednesday, the South City Corporation said, in view of the application of the hospital authorities, the time limits of the respective drug stores may be reviewed and reconsidered according to the requirements.

Dhaka south Mayor Barrister Sheikh Fazle Noor Tapas said, "Of course, medicine is an essential matter. As we understand that hospital-adjacent medicine stores are needed more than the neighbourhood stores, we decided to keep them open until 2am. I think that is reasonable. Still, if any hospital authority informs us in writing, we will take it into consideration."

He added that in some cases, where necessary, medicine stores may be kept open 24 hours and in certain cases the closure time can be extended.

"This will be done by determining the requirements of specific hospitals and areas. From now on, Everyone has to come within a schedule," he added.

Regarding the mayor's statement, DMCH Director Brigadier General Nazmul Haque told The Business Standard, "We cannot make any decision regarding the opening of medical stores. But I had a talk with the mayor today (Wednesday). Later I gave some directions to the shop owners association leaders to keep drug stores open by rotation. We do not want our patients to suffer."

Apart from Dhaka Medical College Hospital, Sir Salimullah Medical College Mitford Hospital and Mugda Medical College and Hospital are under the Dhaka South City Corporation.

Speaking to the directors of these two hospitals, it is learned that they have not had any contact with the city corporation regarding keeping the medicine stores open at night.

However, for the sake of the patients, they feel that the drug stores should be kept open all night.