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News India Live, Digital Desk: When you fall ill, doctors often prescribe medicine for 3 or 4 days, but when you go to a medical store, the shopkeeper gives you the entire medicine strip. You are forced to buy the entire packet of 10 or 15 tablets, which not only puts an unnecessary burden on your pocket, but the remaining medicines also expire after some time and go into the garbage. But, now the common man is soon going to get great relief from this problem. The central government is preparing to bring such a rule, after which the medical store operators will be forced to cut the medicine leaf and give you only as many pills as are written on the doctor’s prescription.
The burden on patients’ pockets will be reduced, medicine will be saved This important proposal has been seriously discussed in the recent meeting of the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) and if sources are to be believed, preparations are on to implement it soon. The retail pharmacy market in India is estimated to be around $20-27 billion by 2024 and the pharmaceutical industry is worth more than $50 billion. This new rule will directly benefit crores of patients in the country. Health experts also believe that in case of expensive medicines where the price of one strip is more than Rs 300, the patient has to pay the full Rs 300 even for just 4 tablets. With the implementation of this rule, patients’ money will be saved and wastage of expensive medicines will also be curbed.
What will happen to the expiry date on cut leaves? There are some practical and technical challenges before the government in implementing this wonderful initiative. Actually, very important information like name of the medicine, manufacturing date, expiry date and batch number are written on the back of the medicine strip. If a medical store owner gives some pills by cutting the leaf in the middle, it is possible that the expiry date or batch number may not be written on the portion received by the customer. This may put the patient’s safety at risk. To solve this problem, the government has constituted a special sub-committee, which is preparing clear guidelines regarding packing, labeling and safety standards.
Chemist Association also put forth its demands Chemists and medical store operators also have their own concerns on this proposal of the government. Rajiv Singhal, head of All India Organization of Chemists and Druggists (AIOCD), says that if a shopkeeper cuts 4 tablets out of 10 and gives away the remaining 6 tablets, then the shopkeeper will have to bear direct loss. He has suggested to the government and pharmaceutical companies that to make this rule successful, the companies should launch small packets of medicines (such as 2, 4 or 6 tablets) in the market. Additionally, if a cut strip is not sold, drug companies should make provisions for taking it back. Also, instead of making big strips of 50 tablets, there should be a rule of making leaves of maximum 10 tablets only so that no one gets harmed.