45% Of Doctors In India Are Writing Incomplete Prescriptions: ICMR Survey Report

New Delhi, April 12 (TNA) The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has revealed that about 45 per cent of doctors are writing incomplete prescriptions, which is directly playing with the health of the patients. The institute says that the doctors giving initial medical advice to the patients in OPD are being very negligent in their haste. After this report of ICMR, prepared after surveying 13 renowned government hospitals, the central government can soon take strict steps to stop this negligence.

In the year 2019, ICMR formed a task force on rational use of medicines, under whose supervision a survey was conducted in OPDs of 13 hospitals between August 2019 and August 2020. These mainly include Delhi AIIMS, Safdarjung Hospital, Bhopal AIIMS, Baroda Medical College, Mumbai GSMC, Government Medical College, Greater Noida, CMC Vellore, PGI Chandigarh and Indira Gandhi Medical College, Patna.

A total of 7,800 patients' prescriptions were taken from these hospitals. Of these, 4,838 were examined, out of which deficiencies were found in 2,171 papers. The surprise came when 475, i.e. about 9.8% of the prescriptions were found to be completely wrong.

This is a situation which cannot be accepted. It was also observed that most patients were advised to take Pantoprazole, Rabeprazole-Domperidone and enzyme medicines, while the prescriptions for upper respiratory tract infection and high blood pressure were found to be the most wrong ones.

50% of medicines in the world are being prescribed inappropriately

The World Health Organization (WHO) implemented international guidelines regarding rational prescriptions in 1985. Yet it is estimated that 50 per cent of medicines worldwide are given to patients inappropriately. Most of the patients do not know which medicine is being given to them for which problem and for how long it has to be taken.

Therefore, the treatment of patients in clinical practice should be based on principles. According to the report, out of the 475 pamphlets analyzed, they were found to be completely wrong, some based on the guidelines of America and some of Britain.