Hyderabad: The Drugs Controller of India has proposed a 48-hour deadline for consumers to use medical prescriptions to purchase medicines.
Pharmacists have complained that people return with the same prescriptions time and again, and they have to give the medicines if they have to retain their customer base.
The reuse of prescriptions amounts to misuse as it encourages the abuse of antibiotics, psychotic and anti-inflammatory medicines, which the drugs controller wants to prevent.
Dr B.R. Jagashetty, a former national adviser on drugs control to the ministry of health, stated that prescriptions for drugs coming under Schedule H must be given a deadline.
Dr Jagashetty said, “Patients usually purchase medicines immediately after they visit the doctor. In case the drugs are not available, the pharmacist secures them in 24 hours. Not more than that. Hence it is possible to set a deadline to curb misuse.”
According to rules, every prescription is to be signed by the medical practitioner and also the pharmacists after dispensing the medicine. A senior drug control officer said that this rule is hardly followed. “Our raids time and again have stressed the point but it is only followed for a few days,” he said.
While this is so, the guidelines by the Medical Council of India to doctors to write prescriptions in capital letters is not overseen by any agency.
A senior drug inspector in the city said “Is it being followed is a major question. The implementation has to come from an enforcement agency but that is not being considered by the health ministry.”
