Pharmacy Services

Taking a prescription to the outpatient pharmacy

A prescription written during a consultation here reaches the pharmacy electronically while you are still walking over, so the pharmacist can have the envelope ready by the time you arrive. You pay at the counter in cash, by card, or through the mobile app.

The counter is open to anyone, whether or not you are being treated at the hospital. Everything is in one building, so there is no walk between blocks from the clinic to the pharmacy.

Running out of a regular medicine

If you bought the medicine here, the mobile app works out from the prescription when it is due to run out and sends you an alert. From the app you can repeat that prescription, for yourself or for a family member, without coming back to the hospital.

Medicines are delivered to your home at no extra charge within a 20 km radius of the hospital.

A repeat sends out again what a doctor here has already prescribed. A new medicine, or a change to the dose, needs a consultation first.

Paying, and what insurance covers

The pharmacy can bill prescriptions to insurance online at the counter. Whether your policy pays for medicines bought as an outpatient is decided by your insurer, not by the hospital, so check your policy before you rely on it. The hospital's empanelled insurers, third-party administrators and corporate and government schemes are listed on the associates page.

For an admitted patient, pharmacy items are part of the hospital bill and go to the insurer or TPA with the rest of it, handled by the Guest Relation Executive.

If someone in your family is admitted

Medicines for an admitted patient come from the ward pharmacy, which supplies the clusters, suites and rooms round the clock. Most doses are dispensed as unit doses, one dose at a time for that patient, and sent to the ward through the pneumatic chute.

Food and medicines from outside are not allowed for an admitted patient. Medicines the patient needs during the stay are supplied by the ward pharmacy and appear on the hospital bill.

Each item is billed as it is used rather than at the end, which is why pharmacy lines appear on the bill through the stay and why the final bill is ready sooner on the day of discharge. If you want to see what has been charged so far, ask the Guest Relation Executive on your floor, or look at the bill in the app.

When discharge is advised, the nurses complete the pharmacy returns, so medicines issued to the ward and not used go back to the pharmacy before the final bill is explained to you.

Bring a written list of the medicines the patient already takes at home, with the doses, and give it to the ward team on admission so those medicines can be continued.

The operation theatre pharmacy

One pharmacy sits inside the operation theatre cluster and holds the medicines and surgical items an operation needs, so nothing has to be fetched from another floor while a patient is on the table.

Stock and storage

The pharmacies hold over-the-counter and prescription-only medicines, surgical items, disposables, controlled drugs, life-saving medicines and general healthcare products.

Every medicine is stored in the conditions it requires. Refrigerated and cold storage is set aside for the ones that need low temperatures, such as biological products and heat-labile substances.

A computerised supply chain system tracks stock across all four pharmacies, so a medicine being used on a ward is reordered before it runs out.