Patna, April 4: Forget fair deal, the generic drugs stores on Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) campus are allegedly fleecing customers by selling them branded medicines at exorbitant price despite availability of alternatives of the same composition at cheaper rates.

The generic medicine stores at PMCH are supposed to sell drugs at 50 per cent of the market price. There are three such outlets at the medical college. But they have been selling the most expensive brands, which even at half the price cost more than the cheaper brands of the same composition.

According to experts, the term generic refers to the chemical composition of a drug rather than the advertised brand name under which the drug is sold.

“Generic drugs marketed without brand names are cheaper than the branded ones though they are chemically identical to branded drugs and meet the same standards of the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) for safety and effectiveness,” a PMCH doctor said.

When The Telegraph asked for Ceftrioxiane 1000mg, an antibiotic injection, at a generic store at PMCH, its salesman handed the composition sold under the brand Maxizon. After 50 per cent discount, the injection cost Rs 67.50.

Injections with the same composition but under different brand names are available in the market between Rs 19.50 and Rs 90. The chart displayed at the store confirmed that the composition was available at Rs 48 and its printed price is Rs 96. But the salesman was keen to push Maxizon.

Most of the patients buying drugs from generic drug stores end up paying more than the market price for the same composition. The contractors running the shops on the hospital premises indulge in fooling poor people right under the nose of the hospital administration.

Ashok Rai, who was buying medicines at one of the generic medicine stores near the emergency ward, said: “My brother was operated upon for multiple fractures. I am a poor man and I cannot understand the price list of drugs and the technical drug names. I am told the price I am paying is heavily discounted and that is what I believe. Besides, the drugs are required urgently and I do not have time to go look for them in the market,” he said.

Cashing in on the innocence of people like Rai, the storeowners are making moolah.

A doctor on duty at the Indira Gandhi critical care unit of the PMCH told The Telegraph that as most patients and their relatives are poor, downtrodden and uneducated, the unfair practice is going unnoticed.

“Many doctors are aware of the practice but they prefer to remain silent because the hospital administration or the health department is not doing anything about it. We have tried to alert unsuspecting patients at times but they choose to buy medicines from the stores believing they are getting them cheaper here,” the doctor said.

Health minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey said the matter was brought to his notice around a week ago.

“Our aim is to ensure poor people get drugs at affordable rates at the generic drug stores. If the drug stores are indulging in such a practice, it is illegal and I have asked the officials concerned to probe into the matter,” he told The Telegraph.