Apollo pharmacy at AKN Nursing Home (Chandana - FT13118)

While most people have been travelling to stores and shops near Mahabalipuram, Anupuram  and even Chennai to carry out their project work, I (unfortunately) ended up in a hospital bed for five days, thanks to typhoid. But by sheer good luck, I was able to make some observations and gather some information right from the hospital.

I was admitted in AKN nursing home in Kilpauk, Chennai. Like any other hospital, it had an Apollo pharmacy adjacent to it, and upon enquiring I got to know that all medical supplies for patients were provided from this pharmacy.

On the very first day I discovered that although the store stocks all sorts of medical supplies, it doesn’t stock certain basic things like mineral water bottles or hand sanitizers which are commonly found in all Apollo pharmacies. I decided to do a comparative study between the regular pharmacies and this particular one affiliated with the hospital, and the following are my observations.

Supply of products is dictated by hospital/doctor rather than customer needs:

In general, medical stores stock only those medicines that doctors prefer to prescribe. Which is why there are some brands (although common and well known) that are unavailable in some stores. Which means Customer has no choice in the products available and it is the hospital/doctor that dictates what products are available and what are not. Example : A pharmacy next to a physician’s clinic would stock medicines for common illness like fever, cold, cough etc. A pharmacy next to an orthopedic doctor’s clinic will have different set of medical supplies like ankle supports, orthopedic shoes, wrist braces etc which you may not get in other stores.

Demand and supply

In AKN nursing home, the pharmacy stocked saline bottles, IV tubes etc which are not available in regular Apollo pharmacies. What was missing here was basic everyday products like mineral water bottles, hand sanitizers. Apart from medicines, medical shops also have general items like chocolates, sugar free tablets and drinks, contact lens liquid etc which were not available here.

The demand for products from this pharmacy came not only from the hospital but also from the locals in the neighborhood as there was no other pharmacy nearby for a few km. But the pharmacy is catering only to the demands of patients who have been admitted in the hospital and not to the attendants of the patient or the neighborhood, in spite of there being a demand.

Supply of products dictated by commissions

Doctors also prescribe certain brands of medicines based on the kind of commission they get for doing so. Example : A doctor in Chennai prescribed Ilosone for fever. As I’d never heard of it I looked it up and found that it was nothing but Erythromycin. Erythromycin, Ilosone, erythocin etc are different brand names of the same compound. Same way doctors also recommend specific labs for blood tests, X-rays etc all for commission.

-Chandana

FT13118