Of late we are reading in news papers about
establishment of generic stores all over the country. In this respect I had
written letters to the editor of Deccan Chronicle a couple of times. As there
was not any reaction from the paper I had written to the Health Minister of
country and Health Minister of AP. Even after that I had read that efforts are
on to establish generic medicine stores all over. Since there appears to be no
use in sending this to the papers or authorities I am sending it as blog. At least
some people who read such blogs can take up the case with the concerned people
and see that govt money is not wasted. Following is my letter to the editor of
DC and similar letters were sent to union health minister and state health
minister.
Dear editor,
This is regarding the news item published in today’s newspaper on the topic ‘AP
to establish 1000 generic medical stores’ . This may not fit your letters
column. If possible I request you to publish it as a separate article.
I am regular
user of generic medicines since a generic medicine shop was opened in Nellore
city of A.P. some three or four years back. I want to express my views on the
above subject as follows:
Some time back Health Minister Kamineni Srinivas said that
efforts were on to make generic medicines available even at the remotest
villages across the State”. This was reported in Hindu, Andhra Pradesh on 13
sept. The problem with generic medicines is not with their availability. Only
problem with generic medicines is lack of cooperation from doctors as Uday Bhaskar
explained. Many doctors have their own
medical stores in their compounds and they never write any generic medicines.
When I told a doctor that I am using a particular generic medicine in liu of
the medicine prescribed by him, he heckled me and told me that I use that
medicine at my own risk. The doctors get
lots of expensive gifts from the medical representatives of big companies and
they write only those medicines whether they benefit a patient or not. Even if
you go to a doctor for a small ailment he writes a list of costly medicines
which are available only in his medical store. These medicines will not be
available in any other shop where equivalent medicines are available at much
lower rates as prescribed by the doctor. The sale of generic medicines had
become a big racket in the hands of big pharmaceutical companies as well as
some corporate hospitals as explained below.
Another reason is that there is no where any label on the
cartons or strips of medicine that a particular brand of medicine is GENERIC. Many shops and even some
pharmacies attached to big corporate hospitals sell these medicines at
exorbitant rates. There are many examples where the generic medicine MRPs are
printed at three times their cost by the marketing agencies. These marketing
agencies are big names like cadila, Ranbaxy, Cipla , Leeford etc. they are
manufactured by unknown companies but marketed by famous companies. They mark
the rates as high as three to four times their actual value. Therefore it is
not required that generic medical shops need to be established everywhere but
only the concerned companies should be made to mark correct MRPs on the
medicines. I don’t understand how the drug control organization has over looked
this aspect for so many years. Probably they were influenced by the big
drug marketing companies. To Illustrate my point I will give just two
examples. One is I purchase a drug called Pregebalin marketed by leeford, from
a generic medical shop at Rs. 40/- per a strip of 10 caps. The MRP marked
is Rs 130/- another ex. is OMEE, the price marked on the strip is more
than three times the actual price. Thus I can give examples of a number
of medicines whose MRPs are three to four times of their actual price. Therefore
my point is that there is no need for establishing generic medicine shops
across the state or country but only print the actual consumer price on the medicines concerned. I hope you will publish
this somewhere in your esteemed paper to bring it to the notice of general
public as well as the concerned authorizes as an individual cannot do anything
about the injustice being done to the general public by big marketing companies
with the connivance of the doctors and concerned authorities. I can write more
on this but my age does not permit me to type more than this at one time . My only request is
that govt. money is not wasted on establishing new shops for generic medicines
but to educate people on the unethical practices followed by doctors and big
Pharmacutical companies.
General public believe that if the medicine by a doctor is not
used his illness will not be cured and hence are prepared to spend lot of money
on medicines. The general saying from
the patient’s near and dear is ‘is money more important than the health and
life of the patient?’
