Drug stores plan strike on May 30

The Greater Hyderabad Retail Medical Shop Association (GHRMSA) is going on strike on May 30 against the latest proposal by the Central Drug Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) to regulate the sale of medicines — by way of putting the prescriptions on an online portal before sale -the association says the move is aimed at helping digital operators mint money.

This amendment, the retail medical shop owners say, would make the chemists pay upto 1 per cent on the MRP of the medicine to the digital providers who would enable the process of uploading the prescription and sales details online. The joint secretary of GHRMSA, Suman Gupta, asks, “Imagine the margin of 1 per cent on 100crore transactions throughout the country every day.”

While the move by the government is aimed at regulating sales and maintaining quality, and is being lauded by doctors and patients, it’s unclear why the pharmacists alone are being put under the radar to maintain the quality.

The government’s circular states that the move is made with a view to specifically keeping a check against anti-microbial resistance(AMR), but chemists suggest that the resistance builds up from the negligence on part of the doctors, patients and manufacturers.

“The doctors may prescribe two or more antibiotics to the patient for less than the stipulated period of one week to make money. Or, the patients may themselves discontinue the medicines and contact another doctor who would then prescribe a new set of antibiotics. How will the government prevent this and eliminate AMR,” asks Suman.

The new proposal also requires of chemists to upload details of the doctor’s MCI registration number, Aadhaar card details, the expiry date of medicine, batch number of the medicines, patient’s name etc before the billing.