High cost of drugs and our doctors

At present most of the drugs are imported to this country by multi-national drug importing companies operating in our country over a period of long time under various brand/ trade names and are distributed throughout the country for sale at a very unreasonable price.

Sometimes we find that there are 75-100 brands of the same drug available in the open market under different company names, and their prices differ. A glaring example of this is Amoxcyline where there are about 75 brands in the open market at different prices. Why do we have so many brands?

Hence the patients do not know which brand is more effective when a doctor prescribes under brand name. We only buy what the pharmacy issues to us. Sometimes it can be the cheapest brand that the pharmacy is selling for a patient at a high price. We merely rely on the pharmacist and most of our pharmacies do not employ qualified pharmacists.

Imported drugs

In addition to these imported drugs our State Pharmaceutical Corporation also produces a limited number of drugs. The prices of imported drugs under different brand names are always expensive in the open market when compared to our own productions of SPC.

When a patient goes to a doctor for consultation on a particular illness, majority of our doctors prescribe drugs under brand names which are very expensive to the patient concerned.

Even a tablet of imported panadol costs more than a locally produced one when the doctor writes out under a brand name. If the effect of the drug is the same, I am at a loss to understand as to why most of our doctors resort to this practice of prescribing drugs under brand names, when cheap SPC drugs are freely available.

One reason for this is most of our doctors are not familiar with the generic names of drugs except a few consultant doctors. Doctors should consider their patients as sacred to them and help the poor patients and not the drug importing multi-national companies to fatten their profits at the expense of the poor patients of this country.

Open market

Even when a patient makes a humble request to the doctor to write out the prescription under generic name of the drug most of the doctors generally do not like such requests.

Since there are many brands of a particular drug available in the open market today doctors could help the patients, if all the doctors could use a ‘Rubber Stamp’ with the wording ‘Not to Substitute’ at the time of writing out a prescription whether it is under trade name or generic name in order to help the patients to enable to buy the most effective drug irrespective of the price range.

I am glad to mention here that there are a few doctors who write out prescriptions under generic names considering their patients as sacred to them more than monetary gains they receive from multi-national drug importing companies.

Unethical practices

Doctors’ primary aim should be to serve the suffering humanity. They were elevated to that position on the taxes paid by the poor people of this country.

Some government doctors have opened up their own private dispensaries either at their own residence or at rented out premises to practise after their normal office hours and on holidays as well, even on Full Moon Poya days and earn a tidy sum. When we take our children to them for a minor illness such as cough, cold and wheeze we get the cheapest drugs that they buy from SPC or from our local private drug producing companies and charge a heavy sum. For e.g. ventolin tablets given to us by them for wheeze which has little effect when compared to the imported ventolin tablets. Locally produced ventolin tablets are very cheap.

Most of our doctors who carry on private practice resort to such unethical practices, as they are crazy for earning more and more at the expense of the poor patients.

In conclusion I shall be very grateful to an honest doctor who practises his/her religion and also with a feeling for the suffering humanity, if he/she could enlighten the public, whether drugs of developed countries are far superior and more effective for a particular illness than drugs produced by under-developed countries. Medical opinion is divided on this issue.

I greatly appreciate a lucid reply through this same media.

- Pro Bono Publico