In a blatant violation of the Government orders and acting against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s consistent efforts to provide cheap generic medicines to the poor patients, the doctors of the Government Doon Medical College (GDMC) hospital are prescribing branded medicines from private medicine shops to the patients. The administration of the GDMC has given repeated orders in the past to the doctors of the hospital to prescribe only the generic medicines which are either available free of cost at the medicine counters of the hospital or the cheap medicine counters like Jan Aaushadhi Kendras (JAK). However, these orders appear to have fallen on deaf ears as the doctors are prescribing costly branded medicines with impunity. The situation has become so pathetic that the free medicines available in the stores of the hospital are becoming useless with many of them getting expired. Similarly the Jan Aaushadhi Kendra (JAK) opened with much fanfare in the hospital premises to provide cheap generic medicines to patients in May 2017 is on verge of closure. On Saturday, this correspondent saw many prescriptions in which the doctors had prescribed only branded medicines. Mahesh Kumar, a resident of Bhagat Singh Colony said that he had to shell out a sum of Rs 1700 for the medicines prescribed by the skin specialist of the hospital.
The love of the doctors for the branded medicines is understandable as the pharmaceutical companies provide them high commissions and offer attractive incentives like foreign trip in lieu of prescribing their medicines. In an attempt to give credence to their practice of prescribing branded medicines many doctors have even started a campaign to discredit the generic medicines. “The doctor told me that the results of the generic medicines are not good,’’ said a patient.
The JAK of the GDMC hospital which is being operated by the Indian Red Cross Society is reporting steep decline in the sales. The secretary of district Red Cross society of Dehradun, Dr M S Ansari told The Pioneer that sale of the JAK counter in the GDMC Hospital has dipped from Rs 4 Lakh from about an year ago to Rs 2.5 lakh a month now. He accepted that the doctors of the hospital are not cooperating and continuously prescribing medicine from outside. Dr Ansari said that he would take up the issue to the district magistrate of Dehradun.
When contacted, the Medical Superintendent (MS) of the hospital Dr K K Tamta said that all the doctors have been asked to prescribe generic medicines only from time to time. He said that strict disciplinary action would be initiated against the doctor prescribing branded medicines.