Chennai: The Union government’s recent diktat to doctors on avoiding prescription errors, though welcomed by many, may take some time for physicians to implement it in letter and spirit, it appears. A few corporate hospitals here provide printed prescriptions to their patients and in order to ensure complete success of the Centre’s decision, doctors and even those at primary health care (PHC) level and individual practitioners should be sensitised, they say. “The Centre’s decision on enforcing MCI norms is a wonderful move. It will make life easier for doctors, patients and even pharmacists,” says Dr R. Sundararaman of SIMS hospital. Asserting there is nothing wrong in writing the prescription legibly, preferably in capital letters along with the generic names of drugs, he says he has been doing this for nine years.
“You need to change the mindset of doctors who should take time to write the prescription legibly,” he adds. “It may not be practically possible to implement it straightaway especially when a doctor has to attend 50-60 patients a day. There will be paucity of time to comply or even resort to issuing printed prescriptions,” claims Dr U. V. Mahesh, partner and physician, Diabetacare. Nevertheless, it is always better to issue legibly written prescriptions, he says.
The situation in government hospitals is far more hectic and alarming. Hundreds of patients visit the out-patient department in government hospitals on a daily basis and the doctors dash off the names of drugs with which the patients get the free medicines at the government dispensaries. In most cases – both in private and government sector, the pharmacists identify the drugs based on the few letters that are legibly written.
“Imagine the catastrophic consequences if the pharmacist or dispensing chemist gives Diamox – used to lower raised pressure in the eye and to treat glaucoma, instead of Dianil used by diabetics or vice versa. If the drugs are interchanged, it will cause huge damage to the patients,” Dr Sundararaman says and adds that it would be better if the pharmacists are not allowed to guess with vague prescriptions.
The Union health ministry recently announced that it would issue a gazette notification under the Indian MCI regulations making it mandatory for doctors to prescribe medicines in capital letters in a legible manner and also mention the generic names of the drugs. Like all other MCI regulations, this will govern all doctors in the country.
