Irfan Tramboo
Srinagar, Dec 18: Violating the drug policy norms and not giving preference to reputed pharma companies, several doctors at the GB Pant Children’s hospital in Sonwar area of Srinagar are prescribing drugs from few selected and newly introduced pharmacy companies without bothering about their efficacy.
The ill-practice of prescribing such drugs is on at the hospital for last few months with authorities taking no note of the trend which is putting the lives of scores of children into danger.
As per hospital insiders, there are few doctors at the hospital who are prescribing drugs from particular companies to every patient who throngs the hospital OPD, even after knowing the fact that these companies being just few months old and have not been subjected to the efficacy check.
As per details accessed by Excelsior, there are five doctors who are working at the GB Pant Children’s Hospital at Sonwar and are indulging in such a practice. Some are even PGs while others are MDs. Excelsior has got details of which doctor is rampantly prescribing drugs from which company.
“There are a dozen of companies that emerged in the market few months ago, and few doctors at the hospital are prescribing drugs being manufactured by these companies. It is not happening that they are prescribing only one drug among these to a particular patient, but if there are 3-4 drugs in a prescription, all four are the products of these companies,” they said.
As per the Drug Policy implemented in the erstwhile J&K State, the doctors were to prescribe only generic drugs-for which the Jan Ashudhi stores were to be opened at the hospitals. As per the Policy, the medicos were to desist from writing the actual names of the drugs. However, here, what is happening is a total reverse.
As a part of this, the Government has opened such stores at majority of hospital in Kashmir. It has, however, failed in starting one at the GB Pant hospital which is housing pediatrics who throng from across the Valley.
When asked about these stores, the Medical Superintendent of the Hospital, Dr Kanwarjit Singh, told Excelsior that the spot has been identified.”One year ago, the space was identified for the Jan Ashudhi store. However, nothing substantial has been achieved in this regard so far, and the stores are yet to be started,” he said.
The drugs such as antibiotics, anti-allergic, calceferols and others that have got their equivalent parallels from reputed companies in the market are not being prescribed by these doctors.
“It is a known fact that the drugs that are being produced by the top pharma companies are having the efficacy rate more than 90 per cent, and on the other hand, the drugs that these doctors are prescribing are having the efficacy rate of not more than 50 percent-the fact that these doctors are not even considering,” they said.
An expert told Excelsior that in order to check the efficacy of a new drug which is inducted in the market, the doctor does not prescribe such drugs on a large scale. “It has to be controlled in order to gauge its efficacy,” he said.
What is interesting here is that there is a little or no price variation between the drugs produced by the companies and other reputed pharmacy companies.
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