The Indian Medical Association (IMA) demanded urgent intervention from the government on August 14 in response to the National Medical Commission’s (NMC) latest regulation asking doctors to prescribe generic drugs, claiming that they should not be forced to perform the duties of chemists and prescribe “poor quality drugs” to patients.
“Uncertainty about the quality of generic drugs is the main barrier. The nation’s quality control is so poor that there is essentially no assurance of the quality of medications, and prescribing medications without this assurance would be harmful to patient health, the IMA stated in its release.
Additionally, it stated that less than 0.1% of the drugs made in India have their quality tested. The IMA demanded that this most recent action be put on hold until the government could guarantee the quality of all the medications put on the market.
The association suggested that the government and NMC simply order all pharmaceutical companies to produce drugs without brand names if they want all of the nation’s doctors to only prescribe generic medications.
“This action merely moves the job. The patient’s health is a doctor’s top priority; the chemist or individual working in a chemist shop is the one selling drugs. The association stated that this would obviously not be in the patient’s best interests.
The IMA also questioned why such drugs should even be licensed, given that modern medicine drugs can only be dispensed on a doctor’s prescription under this system, if doctors are not allowed to prescribe branded drugs.
