BHUBANESWAR: Sending a strong message to doctors, the Health Department on Tuesday introduced prescription audit for government hospitals and mandated the chief district medical officers (CDMOs) with the task of monitoring. All drugs prescribed by the doctors in district hospitals, as a result of the audit, will now come under scanner.Health Minister Prasanna Acharya shot off a letter to all CDMOs asking them to take stock of the prescriptions on a monthly basis. “It has been brought to the notice of the Government that there is no timely free supply of medicines for the poor and needy patients as these are not prescribed by some doctors in government hospitals. Instead, substitutes are being prescribed for purchase from outside drug stores,” he said. Acharya asked the CDMOs to form a committee which will monitor the utilisation of government supply medicines on the 25th of every month at the district level. The Government has taken steps to open generic medicine stores on the campus of several district headquarter hospitals for supply of medicines at lower than the market price, he said adding, “all specialists, assistant surgeons under the CDMOs may be instructed to prescribe medicines giving priority to government supply medicines and generic medicines wherever available.”To keep a track of the prescription, the doctors have been directed to use carbon sheets for generation of a duplicate of the OPD prescription. The duplicate copy of the prescription will be retained at CDMO office. The copy of the prescription will be subjected to random audit. Besides monitoring at the CDMO level, a State-level squad will also conduct the checks. The audit will also keep track if the prescribed medicines are available in the hospital or not.Though the government procures and supplies at least 290 essential drugs for free supply to patients, the tendency among doctors is to prescribe medicine brands. This is prompting patients to get medicines from outside while the same compositions are available in the generic store. The Health Department has been worried that despite a rise in government purchase of drugs, patients have to buy the medicines from outside because of the prescription. In the last five years, the government supply has gone up multifold - from ` 15 crore to ` 50 crore. Besides, under NRHM and other schemes, more drugs are supplied to the hospitals. The Department has been mulling introduction of prescription audit after it learnt through an inquiry that expired saline had been administered to patients at SCB Medical College and Hospital, Cuttack. The problem, though, stemmed from the fact that scrutiny was absent at the hospital level.
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