The Centre’s move towards a legal framework to make doctors prescribe generic drugs and the subsequent notice by the Medical Council of India enforcing the same has failed to find many takers in the medical field.
Curofy, an online community of verified doctors, conducted an opinion poll on generic drugs. Of 5,673 doctors who participated, 73% were against the decision.
Patient health
“It’s not surprising to see that a large percentage of healthcare professionals don’t support one of the landmark decisions that could affect patient health adversely,” noted the survey.
Across tier 1, 2 and 3 cities, the doctors were united in their disagreement with the decision. They expressed various concerns, ranging from the quality of generic drugs to educational qualification of chemists who will now be the decision-maker.
Although doctors from all across the country are against the decision, some States like Assam (89%), Jharkhand (86%) and Kerala (81%) had more one-sided results.
Interestingly, more super specialists were against this decision than general physicians. Within super specialists, gynaecologists (89%), pulmonologists (93%) and intensivist (internal medicine) (89%) disapproved of this ruling than other specialities
Commenting on the situation, the doctors were concerned about the quality of drugs dispensed.
One doctor stated, “Can the government guarantee the quality of drugs available in the market?”
Another doctor said, “Who will take responsibility for quality of drugs? The government, the chemist or the pharmacist? Will patients not come to the doctor but go to the pharmacist if the drugs are ineffective?”
Chemical name
Dr. Suresh Sarvadekar, consultant, Ministry of Medical Education, Maharashtra, said: “Most medicines are chemicals and a chemical name is a generic name. So generic A can be called equivalent to generic B only if it is bioequivalent [reaches blood at the same time with same blood levels] and a therapeutic equivalent. Only generics having the same quality are interchangeable.”
