Close on the heels of Medical Council of India (MCI)'s direction in this regard, the government of Assam has also issued a directive to all medical officers in the state to prescribe all medicines in generic terms in government hospitals and OPDs.

Making a request in this regard, the state health minister Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma wrote individual letters to all the doctors in the government department on January 1, in addition to the health secretary’s circular.

The MCI on January 21 had issued a circular to the deans and principals of all medical colleges, directors of government hospitals and to the state medical councils directing them to prescribe medicines with their generic names as far as possible. The MCI letter reminds the practising doctors in the country of its circular dated 22.11.2012 which had also called upon the doctors to go with generic prescription of drugs.

Taking note of this, the health minister of Assam wrote to the physicians at the hospitals to take it as a government policy in order to distribute all the drugs kept in the drug stores of government health institutions. The minister, in his letter, says that the government is spending more than Rs.100 crores for purchasing medicines to be distributed over the counter to the patients visiting government health institutions. The letter indicates that all the drugs are purchased in generic names and not in any brand name.

The minster’s letter reveals that in spite of repeated efforts from the government side, the doctors are still prescribing in brand names. As a result, not only the poor patients are deprived of getting free of cost medicines but also makes big loss to the government exchequer as generic medicines worth crores of rupees remain unused in the government drug stores. Dr Sarma personally appealed to the doctors to prescribe all medicines in generic terms in order to utilize and finish the stocks, and requested them to buttress the government efforts to provide quality medicines to the poor and underprivileged sections of the society.

Last month, the state health and family welfare secretary, Prateek Hajela, who is also the director for national rural health mission, issued circular to all the health centres including NRHM directing the medical officers to prescribe medicines in generic names. The health department conducted a state level meeting of doctors and other health officials at the Guwahati Medical College & Hospital auditorium on January 2 to discuss the issues related to prescription of medicines.