Urmila Sinha (name changed) on Saturday goes to Jan Aushadhi Kendra at RIMS to buy medicines for her mother suffering from lever problem. The dispensary employee, supposed to be a pharmacist, sees generic names of medicines and says to Urmila that a few medicines are not available, hence she should either buy branded medicine from any pharma store on the other side of the road or get back to the doctor again to get those medicines changed.
“I went back to the doctor who prescribed another medicine. But before I could reach up to Jan Aushadhi Kendra again, the dispensary guy had shut the counter for a two-hour long lunch break. This is why I am here to buy branded medicines of same salt,” said Urmila while purchasing medicines on the other side of the road near RIMS, the largest State-run hospital in State.
The guideline from Central Government for doctors to prescribe only generic medicines appears to have only added sufferings of patients in city, and other parts of State due to a number of problems, mainly supply side issues and a nexus between doctor, pharmacy store and pharma companies which compels doctors to prescribe branded names of medicines yielding high margins.
Prescribing a generic medicine means doctors have to write the salt and not any brand name of medicine which contains that salt. Notably, the cost of generic medicine is up to 70 per cent cheaper than any branded medicine with same salt, helping patients saving thousands of bucks in cases.
“As far as availability of generic medicine is concerned, we are providing over 110 generic drugs as of now. We are going to add another 400 generic medicines as early as next week itself,” said RIMS Director Bl Sherwal.
He also said that Jan Aushadhi Kendra employees have been asked to cut their lunch time of two hours short. “We have been informed about this problem and I have directed Jan Aushadhi Kendra to keep counters open during lunch hours as well. We are also going to have all 500 plus generic medicines with buffer stock of at least three months,” added Sherwal.
Though none of the senior officials came ahead to comment on the issue, Sherwal admitted that quality of educated pharmacists was also a major area of concern in implementing the guideline.
“Though I can’t comment on what private doctors have been doing, everyone knows that pharmacy operators and pharma companies will keep pushing branded medicines because there is huge margin on branded medicines,” said Sherwal.