War against branded medicines: After UP, Now Punjab warns its doctors, directs generic prescription only

Amritsar: Reiterating the stand of the government across the country of generic prescription only, now the state government of Punjab has warned its doctors against prescribing branded medicines.

This comes after several complaints came alleging that patients are being forced to buy expensive medicines prescribed by doctors.

This is a second warning in a week's time as a few days ago the UP government had warned its doctors to prescribe generic medicines only. Similar directions have been issued in several states including Telangana, and Chhattisgarh recently.

Such directions were issued by the Punjab Health Minister on Wednesday while he was paying a visit to Guru Nanak Dev Hospital (GNDH), Amritsar, and Civil Hospital in Tarn Taran in order to ensure the shortcomings that are allegedly resulting in problems for the patients.

"Doctors should write name of the salt instead of writing the brand name of drugs," directed the Health Minister. Such directions from the State should be read in continuation with the directions issued by the National Medical Commission (NMC) in the recently released Draft Ethics Regulations 2022.

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported the Ethics and Medical Registration Board (EMRB) of NMC in the recently released draft Registered Medical Practitioner (Professional Conduct) Regulations, 2022, stated that the doctors should prescribe medicines with "generic"/"non-proprietary"/"pharmacological" names only.

Also Read: Doctors Should write generic, non-proprietary, pharmacological names only: NMC Prescription Guidelines

The prescription guidelines that form an integral part of the Draft mentioned, "Prescribe only those generic medicines that are available in the market and accessible to the patient."

Besides noting that "generic"/"non-proprietary"/"pharmacological" names have to be prescribed, the guidelines reiterated the point by again stating that physicians should "Avoid prescribing "branded" generic drugs". The guidelines however lay down that In the case of drugs with a narrow therapeutic index, biosimilars, and similar other exceptional cases, this practice can be relaxed.

In fact, taking a step further, the Guidelines added that the doctors should "Encourage patients to purchase drugs from Jan Aushadhi kendras and other generic pharmacy outlets" and should "Advocate for hospitals and local pharmacies to stock generic drugs."

As pet the latest media report by Hindustan Times, some of the patients in Punjab had complained about being forced to buy expensive medicines prescribed by doctors. Consequently, now the State Health Minister has issued directions to the doctors for prescribing the generic names of the drugs.

Also Read: Prescribe Generic Medicines only: UP Govt directs Doctors