KOLKATA: Brand names of drugs could soon disappear from prescriptions
issued in government hospitals. The health department is about to issue
an order making it mandatory for doctors to mention the generic name of
medicines instead of their brands while writing prescriptions.
This is being done to prevent pharmaceutical companies from pushing
their products in government hospitals, which are supposed to provide
medicines free of charge to patients. The decision will be conveyed to
the superintendents of government hospitals on February 24.
The move
was planned about a year ago and could be implemented by the end of
this month. Though millions of patients are set to benefit from the
decision, doctors are sceptical. Prescribing generic drugs could pave
the way for inferior products, which are cheaper but ineffective, they
point out.
The health department is now preparing a list of generic drugs for which brand names can no longer be used.
Antibiotics and life-saving drugs top the list. Brand names, however,
can be used in exceptional circumstances, health officials said. "A
doctor can mention a brand name only if he believes the particular brand
to be more effective and essential in that particular case. The doctor
must write a justification certificate, explaining why he has mentioned
the brand," said Tridib Banerjee, chairman of the task force for infant
mortality.
Each hospital will have a designated drug store from
where medicines can be bought in case it is not available at the
hospital medical store. Prescribing generic drugs will not only thwart
pharmaceutical firms from hard selling their products, often through
unfair means, but also ensure that doctors prescribe medicines that are
available at the hospital store, Banerjee said."There is a
tendency to prescribe drugs which have to be purchased from the market.
This is not what they are supposed to do. Doctors should be prescribing
medicines which are available at the store, to the extent possible,"
said Banerjee. He added that the list of generic drugs would be ready in
a few days. It will include all groups of medicines that are generally
recommended for a wide range of medical conditions.
A section of
doctors says the plan is welcome but it will work only in an ideal
situation. Unless the government ensures that all brands in the market
conform to a basic standard, treatment will suffer, they argued. "There
are dozens of brands for, say, paracetamol. Now, patients will have to
accept what the drug store gives them and you can't rule out the
possibility of inferior brands being pushed. Since doctors are
accountable to patients, we shall be held responsible for failing to
cure them. So, the government should introduce a quality control and
assessment system, which will make sure that only good quality drugs are
available in the market," said Subir Ganguly, senior oncologist at NRS
Medical College Hospital.
Rezaul Karim, of Sagar Datta Medical
College Hospital, agrees. "There are loads of inferior and spurious
stuff available in the market. These firms will now be encouraged to pay
a higher commission to drug stores and push their products. The move
will do more harm than good unless you have quality control," said
Karim.
Penal action will be taken against doctors in case they
are found violating the rule, the health department made it clear. "We
shall have a cell that will address complaints," said Banerjee.
Cardiac surgeon Kunal Sarkar feels generic prescriptions will lead to confusion and errors in drug delivery.
"Before implementing the decision, the health department has to make
sure that their designated pharmacies and stores have adequate supply of
the listed drugs, which is often not the case. Secondly, we don't have a
uniform drug manufacturing standard which means quality is not
guaranteed. In the absence of brands, spurious and unscrupulous
manufacturers might try to take advantage. Finally, few of our
pharmacies have trained chemists who will now have to identify drugs by
their generic names rather than brand names which is infinitely more
difficult.I would request the authorities to think twice before introducing the system," said Sarkar.
Source :THE TIMES OF INDIA
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