The Coimbatore Medical College Hospital (CMCH) has replaced medicine covers carrying dosage instructions in Tamil, English and Hindi following a controversy over the use of Hindi in the State-run hospital.
The issue surfaced after photographs of the brown paper medicine covers circulated on social media. DMK leader and former Industries Minister T.R.B. Raja criticised the inclusion of Hindi, saying it appeared to contradict Tamil Nadu’s long-standing two-language policy of Tamil and English.
CMCH subsequently instructed pharmacy staff to stop using the trilingual covers and switched to new covers containing Tamil and English. Officials said dosage instructions would be manually stamped according to each patient’s prescription before medicines are handed over.
The controversy also involved medicine covers used at the Government Medical College Hospital in Karur. Reports said the covers had been printed at a cooperative press in Erode in December 2025, with hospital officials claiming the Hindi text was included without specific instructions from them.
At CMCH, however, officials said the trilingual covers were not newly introduced and had reportedly been in use for more than a year, including during the previous government. The hospital also serves a large number of migrant workers, and some pharmacists argued that multilingual dosage instructions can help patients who may not understand Tamil.
The episode has renewed debate over language use in Tamil Nadu’s government institutions and the implementation of the State’s two-language policy.

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