Court’s prescription for doctors!

Following a ruling by the High Court, Medical Council of India directs doctors to write prescriptions only in capital letters. A two-member Bench of the High Court comprising Chief Justice Kalyan Joythi Senguptha and Justice Sanjay Kumar had taken up the case for hearing on 24, February

Why every medical practitioner across the nation writes Illegible way on prescriptions?. No government organisation had an answer for this and how it came in to practice, but finally the stage is set to curb the practice due to a sustained campaign of a Nalgonda based pharmacist as Medical Council of India General Body had resolved to issue guidelines asking the practitioners to use only capital letters on prescription.

The pharmacist, Chilukuri Paramathma, has said that he approached the High Court, Hyderabad, for banning the usage of present style of writing as it is leading to confusion in pharmacists. Unable to understand the prescriptions, he said that there are so many instances of pharmacists giving wrong medicine to patients that even led to disasters. He explained such an instance saying that a pharmacist working with a pharmacy chain store in Vidyanagar in Hyderabad had given ‘Tegrital’ Tablet instead of ‘Trental’ tablet to a pregnant woman as he misunderstood the prescription.

The ‘Trental’ tablet was intended for better blood circulation in pregnant woman, but Tegrital tablet is meant for abortion. As she got aborted after taking the tablet, that had turned into a big issue. Mr. Paramathma had gathered such 100 tablet names looks like homonyms in English which were presented before the High Court through a Public Interest Litigation.

A two-member Bench of the High Court comprising Chief Justice Kalyan Joythi Senguptha and Justice Sanjay Kumar had taken up the case for hearing on 24, February, 2014 and issued directions asking the Medical Council of India (MCI)and other stakeholders to take appropriate action. The MCI had decided to issue guidelines asking the doctors to write the prescriptions only in capital letters in a general body meeting held on March 28. The decision of MCI along with a draft notification has been sent for Centre’s approval on June 9 this year. Once the Centre gives it’s nod, every medical practitioner in India will have to follow the guidelines to be issued by the Centre.

Mr. Paramathma told The Hindu that the pharmacists were elated with the decision. However, he said it was not intended to hurt any practitioner, but only fought against it for the welfare of people and pharmacists.

Mr. Paramathma had sought information from Medical Council of Andhra Pradesh by filing RTI when the Council replied to him saying that there were no such guidelines in place over the usage of writing prescriptions which prompted the pharmacist to approach the High Court.