Staff Reporter :
Siraj Uddin, a rickshawpuller, admitted his wife to Jhenaidah Sadar Hospital with pregnancy difficulties. Doctors gave him a prescription to buy some medicines. He went to the pharmacy to buy the medicines. But he came back as he was unable to buy the medicines due to lack of money.
His relative staying in the hospital lends him some money and he went to the pharmacy again. Luckily, a mobile team then was raiding some medical shops namely-Matrichaya, Panna and Siddique pharmacies.
The mobile team found many irregularities in these pharmacies.
Later, Siraj Uddin told the mobile team that he could not buy medicine for
money scarcity. The team found that the pharmacies were selling a medicine named ‘Solas’ at Tk 550 to 600. But the actual price of the medicine is only Tk 15.
The mobile team also found Naru Gopal and Nasir Biswas who bought the same medicines from the pharmacies at higher prices.
Executive Magistrate Abu Saleh Md Hasnat fined Tk 20,000 each for the irregularities of the owners of three medicine shops.
The Magistrate also ordered the pharmacies to back the buyers extra money.
Abu Saleh Md Hasnat said, the medicine shops were selling medicines with high prices, which is the violation of Section 40 of the Consumers’ Act. “We have caught the staff of the pharmacies red-handed during the selling,” he said.
Rickshaw puller Siraj Uddin said, “We are illiterate. We know nothing and even cannot talk properly with the people. But it is unfortunate that the pharmacies charge higher price to us,” he said.
Nasir Biswas told The New Nation that I knew the actual price of the medicine. That is why I protested for the high price. But the staff of Panna dispensary assaulted me.
“I had to buy the medicine at higher price unless the magistrate came to the spot,” he said.
