Bengaluru: Hoping to reduce the financial burden of patients, the government has now made it mandatory for doctors to prescribe generic drugs and not mention brand names. But there is scepticism about how well it can work in the Indian scenario.
The health ministry, which based its order on a recent notification by the Medical Council of India advising doctors to prescribe drugs in the generic form, has asked it to enforce it by October, insisting that doctors legibly write the generic name of drugs in their prescriptions.
"With this notification in place, patients will benefit cost-wise without compromising on the quality. However, for critical cases of sepsis, post angioplasty and heart attacks, branded drugs have an edge as not all the generics are effective and there are some patent products of companies which are specific to critical patients. As the MCI notification does not call for prescription of only generic drugs, doctors are free to prescribe branded drugs in such cases," explains Dr Sunil Rao, Senior Vice President Operations (South), Columbia Asia Hospitals , revealing that the hospital has been prescribing generic drugs from March, a month before the notification was issued.
Dr Venkataramana N K, founder and Chief Neurosurgeon, Brains ( Neuro Spine Centre) is, however, afraid of the consequences if the government order is enforced without adequate preparation and in the absence of a comprehensive legislative ecosystem addressing every aspect of the issue.
