Transdermal patches are adhesive bandages with the function to distribute medication through the skin, rather than protecting a wound.

At the heart of the panel's short-term recommendations are proposals to hire nurses to distribute medication in the homes, and mental-health workers to supervise closely the services that the residents are receiving.

ICNA Relief is running medical relief camps in 13 locations, distributing free medication and providing ambulance services.

Those include the assessments and measures to station nurses and other mental health workers permanently in the homes to distribute medication and improve oversight of residents.

Under the current system, for example, operators say they can afford only $6-an-hour workers to distribute medication, and state inspection reports show that medication errors are rampant.

And some hospital pharmacies turn away 300 to 500 patients daily because they lack enough workers to distribute medication.

Simple tasks, such as distributing medication, were carried out by other categories of inmates such as "hallboys".

The lawsuit charged that the home neglected residents who were in crisis, distributed psychotropic medication haphazardly or not at all, allowed rooms to become infested with vermin and misappropriated money.

Situated in a grubby room off the hospital lobby, the pharmacy distributes free medication for everything from tuberculosis to Hansen's disease.

It was shortly thereafter that he met Magwald Xargin - then an enthusiastic researcher hoping to distribute medication to the impoverished population.