SRINAGAR: Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) Thursday said the government order wherein doctors have been directed to write only generic drugs will curtail patients right of choice and right of doctors to prescribe tried and tested brands.
In a statement, President DAK Dr Nisar-ul-Hassan said that government hospitals have no medicines available and the only source for patients is local pharmacy. This leaves the patient to the mercy of the dispenser who can dispense any brand available for the generic drug prescribed. This puts patients at higher risk of being cheated by drug dispensers whose business strategy concentrates chiefly on monetary benefits. This discretion of chemists to choose a brand will promote spurious drugs as majority of our drug market is unregulated and there is no quality control to monitor drug standard.
Quality concerns of generics in India prompted recent shutdown of several generic drug plants. A study in 2012 found that certain Indian generics of antidepressant Wellbutrin XL didnt work the same way as brand-name version. US FDA banned importation of generic medicines from Ranbaxy, Wockhardt and Sun because of quality lapses. Previous government failed to implement drug policy of which generic drug was a clause because it was flawed, he claimed.
The key component of drug policy was to keep all the essential drugs available in government hospitals free of cost to patients. Household drug expenditure of our state is 87.09% while as government spends only 02% of health budget on drugs which is minuscule. DAK is for a comprehensive drug policy for ensuring quality medicines besides enforcing rationale prescribing and dispensing practices and streamlining procurement and supply chain of medicines, Dr Hassan added.
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