Even though the Medical Council of India (MCI)’s directive to all state medical councils and its recommendation to the Union health ministry with regard to prescribing drug names in capital letters and writing generic terms remain government orders in several states, the efforts of the pharmacist from a rural village in the Telangana state are recognized and valued by the whole pharmacist community in the country.

Chilukury Paramathma, a D Pharm holder and proprietor of Raja Medicals in Nalgonda district, is the man behind the MCI decision and subsequently the force behind the central government circulars directing state governments to follow the directives of the MCI. Starting from early 2013 and to March 28, 2014 when the MCI approved its final decision with amendment that drug names in the prescription should be written in capital letters, Paramathma had no rest.

“Paramathma has set an excellent example. It has brought good result to the pharmacy community. His efforts will surely inspire others to do something fruitful like this,” commented Prof. Roop Narayan Gupta, professor at the department of pharmaceutical sciences, Birla Institute of Pharmacy, Ranchi, Bihar. Prof. Gupta told Pharmabiz that Paramathma would be honoured in national level by various pharmacist associations.

Worried over the difficulties in reading prescriptions given by physicians, Paramathma, who is also a member of the Nalgonda district drug advisory committee, took a strong decision and wrote a letter to the Union health and family welfare minister on 25.07.2013 demanding the government to bring a legislation to enforce the doctors write names of drugs in capital letters rather than writing in changing small letters. He did similar correspondence to the health secretary, to the DCGI, DGHS and also to the Medical Council of India.

While speaking to Pharmabiz, Paramathma said since the doctors only scribble certain letters of the medicines, the pharmacists find it too difficult to read it and often do wrong delivery, which would harm the patients. He pointed out that some physicians only wrote the first and the last letters clearly, and the middle part would be scribbled. He also wanted that the government should empower the pharmacists to send the prescriptions back to the physicians if the writing was not clear for reading.

The Union ministry of health had taken the suggestion of the pharmacist seriously and sent the letter with a request to the MCI to consider the matter seriously and wanted to take necessary action. The ministry had also sought the opinions of medical experts, drugs controller general of India and director general of health sciences on writing of names in capital letters.

Subsequently, the MCI in its executive committee meeting held on January 23, 2014 considered the matter and approved a draft to be sent to the government. On receiving the letter and the draft, the ministry of health wrote to MCI on February 12, 2014 to add the phrase ‘preferably in capital letters’ in the draft.

The executive committee of the medical council, held on February 18, 2014 decided to correct/amend the words as per the direction of the MoH. The corrected version is ‘ preferably capital letters’. However, the ministry was not satisfied with it and wanted the medical council to ratify capital letters through further correction. Followed by it, another executive committee of the MCI held on March 14, 2014 amended the draft as ‘legible and in capital letters’ in place of ‘legible preferably in capital letters’. Later on March 28, the general body of the council approved the amendment and informed the ministry. After that, the MCI sent circulars to all the state medical councils to comply with its directives.

As the first example of compliance, on July 29, 2015, the government of Telangana state announced an order as per the MCI directive. The director of medical education in Telangana sent circulars to all the teaching and treating hospitals under the government that doctors working in the government hospitals should write their prescriptions in capital letters only. The director of medical education had also announced that the physicians should write the generic terms of drugs only, except in critical care cases.

Last month, government of Kerala also gave orders to write prescriptions in capital letters and use generic names of medicines.