NEW DELHI: The Indian Medical Association (IMA) on Monday put out a strong statement against the latest guidelines issued by the National Medical Commission (NMC) which allegedly mandated the doctors to prescribe generic drugs to patients.
Responding to the medical commission’s move which has courted controversy, the apex body of private medical practitioners has urged the Centre for an urgent intervention in the case stating that they should not be forced to do the work of chemists and prescribe “poor quality drugs” to patients.
The IMA questioned the quality of the generic drugs which, according to the medical association, would be detrimental to public health. It also asked if doctors are not allowed to prescribe branded drugs, then why such drugs should be licensed at all, given that modern medicine drugs can be dispensed only on the prescription of doctors of this system.
“Less than 0.1 per cent of the drugs manufactured in India are tested for quality. The biggest impediment to generic drugs is the uncertainty about their quality. The quality control in the nation being very weak, there’s practically no guarantee of the quality of drugs, and prescribing drugs without assured quality would be detrimental to patient health,” the IMA stated.
This step should be deferred till the government can assure the quality of all the drugs released into the market. Patient care and safety are not negotiable, it added. The association said that if the government and the NMC want all the doctors to prescribe only generic drugs, they should simply order all pharma firms to manufacture drugs without brand names.
“This measure is just shifting the job. Doctors’ primary concern, training, and responsibility is patients’ health; it is the chemist/person sitting in a chemist shop, who is selling drugs....” IMA said.
Notably, the NMC, in a notification dated August 2, had advised doctors to prescribe only generic drugs, failing which they would be penalised and may even see their license to practice suspended.