Officials from the Shanghai Drug Administration conducted a spot check in rural areas recently to get first-hand information on drug supplies in villages.

"We found that some districts like Baoshan and Jinshan have done a good job in establishing an integrated medicine distribution system, as the township hospitals are in charge of supplying drugs for 90 percent or more village clinics," said Wang Longxing,director of the administration. "This has ensured drug quality."

But officials also expressed concern at poor management in some places,citing Chongming County as an example.

"Among the 44 clinics we inspected in the county last week, warehouses of 26 were very dirty," said Wang. "Medicines in 21 clinics were scattered about without being classified,which can be a problem or even lead to mistakes when staff make prescriptions. It underscored the potential danger to patients'health."

Shockingly, 33 clinics were found in possession of overdue medicines,including 14,000 boxes of drugs and 1,201 injections. The expired drugs took up nearly 75 percent of storage in some clinics.

Some clinics even had tetanus antitoxin and albumin,which are abnormal for such facilities, but which were nonetheless stored casually in room temperature when they should be kept between 2 to 8 degrees Celsius to maintain their efficacy.

"Driven by greed for high profits,some village clinics haven't followed the cardinal rule of buying their medicines from township hospitals, to prevent fakes and poor quality drugs. Instead they acquired them from the black market at lower prices," said Wang.

Recognizing the seriousness of the issue,the local drug watchdog has ordered the suburban drug administrative departments to conduct more and stricter checks,and monitor the clinics to ensure that they undergo renovation.

While urban pharmacies are required to have at least two certified experts to check prescriptions, officials noted that rural doctors and clinic staff are ignorant of even the basic professional knowledge.

"I talked with 65 doctors working in rural clinics.To my surprise, only 11 had some understanding of the nation's Drug Management Law, while the rest had no idea of the law or basic knowledge of medicine,"said Wang. "How can such staff provide rural patients with correct diagnosis and prescribe the right medicine?"

(eastday.com May 20, 2002)