SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, Aug 17: The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has strongly opposed the National Medical Commission (NMC) notification to prescribe only generic medicines to patients.
IMA national president Dr Sharad Kumar Agrawal and secretary general Dr Anil Kumar J Nayak while expressing concern on the NMC notification, have said that it is a wrong step to make it mandatory for doctors to write only generic medicine. It is also a concerning matter for the IMA as it would directly impact the health and safety of the patients.
“The notification is an injustice too with doctors who never compromise on the interest of the patients,” they said.
Jharkhand chapter IMA president Dr AK Singh and general secretary Dr Pradip Kumar Singh today said that they have received a mail from the national body about the NMC notification. “We would discuss over it after getting proper guidelines from the national body,” they said.
“If doctors have no permission for prescribing branded medicines then why such drugs should be given licenses? Moreover, if the government is serious about implementing generic medicines it should ensure the quality of generic medicines and give license only for them only,” said the IMA officials.
The IMA national president and the secretary said that it looks suspicious that branded medicines are available in the market but doctors are not authorised to prescribe them.
They said uncertainty in the quality of generic medicines is the main hurdle in its implementation. The country lacks the mechanism to control the medicine quality. There is no practical guarantee of quality of medicines and prescribing medicines without ensuring quality could be fatal for patients.
The IMA office-bearers said that in India quality of medicines is tested less than 0.1%. The NMC order issued on August 2 should be held up till the quality of medicines is tested. “The IMA demands quality insurance from the government before making generic medicines mandatory for doctors,” they said.
The IMA has also urged the central government to intervene immediately in this matter for the safety of patients.
