Soon after Prime
Minister Narendra Modi's push for generic drugs, the medical council of India
(MCI) sent a circular to health officials across all states to ensure that
doctors are following the guidelines that were updated over a year ago. MCI
mandates that doctors must write a prescription using generic names of drugs
but a chat with even a handful of pharmacists will reveal that most doctors are
not doing so. Less than one-tenth of a prescription a pharmacist gets is
written using generic names. Mumbai has three Jan Aushadhi shops that sell over
600 drugs at rates that are one-tenth the cost of branded medicines but neither
are many patients aware of the difference between a generic and a branded drug,
nor are these drugs in supply every time there is a demand. So the onus then
falls on the pharmacist who is being largely ignored in the entire scheme of
things. The doctor might prescribe a generic drug but there are several
companies manufacturing generics - each with a difference price structure. What
a customer does not know is that the pharmacist gets up to 60 per cent margin
on several generic drugs and hence it is important to educate as well as
regulate the neighbourhood pharmacist who gets as many queries from a patient
as a doctor would get.
Source: DNA-25th April,2017
