Doctors, pharmacists concerned over prescribing generic medicines to patients

Doctors and pharmacists from Kolhapur have raised a number of concerns over implementation of Central government's decision to prescribe only generic medicines to patients, The Times of India reported.

On Saturday, the Medical Council of India (MCI) called on doctors to conform to its guidelines on generic drugs prescription and writing prescriptions legibly.

The MCI has decided to act against doctors violating the guidelines. The doctors claimed, however, that they had no issue in prescribing generic medicines and pharmacists also said they had no problem in dispensing such drugs.

However, both doctors and pharmacists claimed that the real issue pertained to implementation as most of the medicines available in the market were combinations of drugs and in such cases the cost to the patient for buying three - four prescribed components of the single medicine might be higher than a branded medicine.

Madan Patil, president of Kolhapur District Chemist Association, said, "Most of the generic medicines available in the market are branded with different names," The ToI reported. "Going by the definition of generic medicine, the medicine should be of just one component. If the illness is such that the doctors need to prescribe a medicine with combination of drugs, then the doctor will have to list all the components separately. In most of the cases we cannot assure all components will be available at the same time. Secondly, buying multiple generic drugs may turn out to be costly as compared to branded medicines."

Meanwhile, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) while supporting prime minister Narendra Modi's announcement that doctors should prescribe only generic drugs, said the government needed to ensure availability of generic medicines through Jan Aushadhi stores and also the quality through proper regulatory controls. It had also recommended that branded generics be brought under price control to make expensive generics affordable.

According to an official, the implementation of mandatory code for doctors to ensure generics got precedence over branded drugs was possible only if the government could bring branded generics under price control, an official said.

The prime minister has also announced that the government was working on a legal framework under which doctors would need to prescribe low cost generic medicines to patients.