OBJECTIVES: Medicines should be used appropriately to ensure patients’ health. The aim of this study was to evaluate the drug use practices in the ophthalmology wards of two tertiary care hospitals situated in the Bahawalpur district of the Punjab province of Pakistan. In this study, we used the standard WHO/INRUD patient-care and facility-specific indicators. METHODS: This descriptive, non-experimental and cross-sectional study was conducted in the ophthalmology wards of the Bahawal Victoria Hospital and the Civil Hospital. Three hundred patients and all pharmacists available at the time of data collection were interviewed to investigate the patient-care and facility-specific indicators, respectively. We used the published ideal standards for each of the WHO/INRUD indicators. Statistical Package for Social Sciences was used to analyze the data. RESULTS: Among the patient-care indicators, the average consultation time was 2.2 minutes (SD = 1.1) (optimal value ≥ 10 minutes), the average dispensing time was 11.5 seconds (SD = 3.2) (optimal value ≥ 90 seconds), the average number of medicines per encounter was 1.9 (SD = 0.8) (optimal value = 1.6–1.8), the percentage of medicines actually dispensed and adequately labelled were 100% (SD = 0.0) (optimal value = 100%) and the patients’ knowledge of correct dosage were 72.5% (SD = 9.2) (optimal value = 100%). Among the facility-specific indicators, both facilities had a copy of essential drugs list, and the key drugs available in the stock were 42.4% (SD = 34.3) (optimal value = 100%). CONCLUSIONS: Patient-care indicators were below the optimal index especially the average consultation and dispensing times, and the patients’ knowledge of correct dosage. Unavailability of all key drugs in the stock is also alarming which requires urgent attention. Continuous education of the physicians, and adequate physician-to-patient and pharmacist-to-patient ratio are some options to promote the rational drug use in the given healthcare setting.