Covid-19: Protests, serpentine queues mark sale of remdesivir in Tamil Nadu

CHENNAI: Protests, long queues, heated exchange of words between disappointed kin and Tamil Nadu Medical Services Corporation (TNMSC) officials and allegations of hoarding marked the sale of antiviral drug remdesivir across the state on Monday.
TNMSC data shows the counter at Kilpauk Medical College and Hospital in Chennai sold 1,500 vials of the drug, followed by 560 in Coimbatore, 500 in Madurai, 393 in Trichy and 300 each in Salem and Tirunelveli, all at MRP. However, many continued to purchase it in the black market, with one person at a private hospital in Chennai shelling out ₹30,000 per vial.

At the Coimbatore Medical College and Hospital, hundreds of people waiting to buy the drug protested when the sale counter closed hardly half an hour after it opened. While TNMSC staff said it was because the allotted 500 doses were sold by then, the protesters, many of who had come from neighbouring districts, suspected unfair practices.
A hospital official said preference was given to the 63 people issued tokens the previous day. “With each patient requiring six doses, we could give it to only 20 new people,” he said.
At the Government Mohan Kumaramangalam Medical College and Hospital in Salem, hundreds returned emptyhanded. V Gopi Kumar, who had waited in the queue from 8pm on Sunday, said there were nearly 200 people ahead of him and he couldn’t get the injection for his father.
K Srinivasan of Hosur said TNMSC officials asked him to come with the latest prescription on Tuesday as he was holding one dated Sunday.
Hundreds from Madurai and surrounding districts had thronged the medical college hospital in the temple town from as early as 2am, but a majority of them had to return disappointed as the day’s stock soon ran out. S Pandian of Dindigul said his son was undergoing treatment at a hospital in his hometown. “His condition is critical and doctors asked me to arrange for Remdesivir. But I couldn’t.”
The crowd at the government physiotherapy college in Trichy was so huge that collector S Divyadharshini said there was limited supply of Remdesivir. “Full-fledged distribution commenced today [Monday]. Let us monitor the situation. In case of need of more vials, we will inform the government,” she said.
While counters remaining closed on Sunday was cited as one of the reasons for the huge crowds, Su Venkatesan, MP from Madurai, wrote to railway minister Piyush Goyal, urging him to allocate more Remdesivir for Tamil Nadu as the allotment was barely enough for a fourth of the patients.
(Inputs from Pushpa Narayanan in Chennai, Pratiksha Ramkumar in Coimbatore, V Senthil Kumaran in Salem, V Devanathan in Madurai and R Gokul in Trichy)