Mumbai, June 13 -- Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner Tukaram Mundhe on Friday issued a directive to hospitals and nursing homes across the state to not make it binding on patients and their relatives to purchase medicines from their in-house pharmacies. "By law, no one can be forced to buy medicines from a particular pharmacy. We have passed orders today. Patients can buy medicines wherever they wish," Mundhe said while addressing a press conference at the FDA headquarters. A chief executive officer of a leading hospital in Mumbai said, "In our hospital, we provide medicines to in-house patients, but there is no pharmacy for outpatients. Bigger hospitals in Mumbai don't force any patient to buy medicines in-house, but smaller ones do." FDA officials said the action was mainly targeted at small nursing homes/ poly clinics/ small hospitals that insist on patients buying medicines from their in-house store or a particular pharmacy. "In one case, we found that a leading doctor in the eastern suburbs owned a pharmacy which only sold brands prescribed by him. While patients were asked to buy medicines only from that shop, it did not have medicines of the same composition from other brands, which may have cost lesser," an FDA inspector said, requesting anonymity. While addressing the press conference, Mundhe also said that henceforth, those found involved in trading gutkha or pan masala containing tobacco and allied tobacco-laced products would be booked under Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), where getting bail will be difficult and offenders would get stricter punishment. Over the past 10 years, the FDA has filed only 705 cases regarding the manufacture, storage, and transportation of gutkha, Mundhe said, while urging all regional officers to examine the applicability of the MCOCA in eligible cases. The police are cooperating well with the FDA in drives against offenders, he noted. The commissioner clarified that the objective was not to harass law-abiding traders. Instead, strict, evidence-based, and legally robust action would be taken against entities engaged in the organised trade of gutkha and other food products that endanger public health. Such offences would henceforth be treated not merely as food safety violation, but as serious organised crime against public health, he said....