A week after the Indian medical regulator, the Medical Council of India (MCI), asked doctors to prescribe medicines by their generic names, activists maintain that the government’s decision will not have an impact unless the law can ensure that pharmacists also fall in line.
Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced that his government will make generic prescription writing mandatory for doctors. On Friday, the Medical Council of India (MCI) issued a circular stating that amendments made to the Indian Medical Council (Professional Conduct, Etiquette and Ethics) Regulation, 2002 had made it mandatory for doctors to prescribe drugs with generic names, legibly and preferably in capital letters, and stipulated that they should ensure rationality in the prescription and use of drugs.
The idea behind the move was to ensure that patients did not have to purchase more expensive, branded drugs when cheaper, generic options were available in the market. The amendment was prompted after it was found that doctors were often unnecessarily prescribing expensive brands, making patients shell out more.
Public health activists, however, said that the new MCI rule was inadequate for the purpose it was introduced – to make sure patients get the cheapest generic drugs in the market. “It will require behaviour change from the medical fraternity, which mistakenly associates more expensive brands with quality,” said Leena Menghaney, a lawyer working on public health and access to treatment. “The government will also have to address the issue of high trade margins that retail chemist shops enjoy. They just stock the branded medicines of those companies which offer them the biggest mark-ups. Sometimes, a medicine costs just a few rupees to produce but by the time it reaches the patient, it costs hundreds of rupees. So, generic prescription regulations must be matched by laws which ensure that chemist shops in India stock and offer the more affordable brands of generic medicines to patients.”
Activists maintain that the standalone decision to prescribe generics will not be fruitful if chemists flout the rules. In a press statement, All India Drug Action Network (AIDAN), an NGO, said, “In the absence of universal availability of good quality generic name medicines in retail pharmacy shops, merely getting doctors to start prescribing medicines under generic names will end up in shifting the discretion to pharmacists, who will are likely to dispense brands that give them more commission.”
The medical fraternity, however, maintains that the decision will compromise the quality of the medicine. Medical associations across the country have already registered their protest, with the Bihar Medical Association looking at legal remedies available for doctors.
