 Hospital pharmacies typically provide medications for the hospitalized patients only, and are not retail establishments and therefore typically do not provide prescription service to the public.Some hospitals do have retail pharmacies within them (see illustration), which provide over-the-counter as well as prescription medications to the public, but these are not the actual hospital pharmacy.Hospital pharmacies may provide a huge quantity of medications per day which is allocated to the wards and to intensive care units according to a patient's medication schedule.