The Hindu: Nalgonda: Friday, 01 August 2014.

Why every
medical practitioner across the nation writes Illegible way on prescriptions?.
No government organisation had an answer for this and how it came in to
practice, but finally the stage is set to curb the practice due to a sustained
campaign of a Nalgonda based pharmacist as Medical Council of India General
Body had resolved to issue guidelines asking the practitioners to use only
capital letters on prescription.
The
pharmacist, Chilukuri Paramathma, has said that he approached the High Court,
Hyderabad, for banning the usage of present style of writing as it is leading
to confusion in pharmacists. Unable to understand the prescriptions, he said
that there are so many instances of pharmacists giving wrong medicine to
patients that even led to disasters. He explained such an instance saying that
a pharmacist working with a pharmacy chain store in Vidyanagar in Hyderabad had
given ‘Tegrital’ Tablet instead of ‘Trental’ tablet to a pregnant woman as he
misunderstood the prescription.
The ‘Trental’
tablet was intended for better blood circulation in pregnant woman, but
Tegrital tablet is meant for abortion. As she got aborted after taking the
tablet, that had turned into a big issue. Mr. Paramathma had gathered such 100
tablet names looks like homonyms in English which were presented before the
High Court through a Public Interest Litigation.
A two-member
Bench of the High Court comprising Chief Justice Kalyan Joythi Senguptha and
Justice Sanjay Kumar had taken up the case for hearing on 24, February, 2014
and issued directions asking the Medical Council of India (MCI)and other
stakeholders to take appropriate action. The MCI had decided to issue
guidelines asking the doctors to write the prescriptions only in capital
letters in a general body meeting held on March 28. The decision of MCI along
with a draft notification has been sent for Centre’s approval on June 9 this
year. Once the Centre gives it’s nod, every medical practitioner in India will
have to follow the guidelines to be issued by the Centre.
Mr.
Paramathma told The Hindu that the pharmacists were elated with the decision.
However, he said it was not intended to hurt any practitioner, but only fought
against it for the welfare of people and pharmacists.
Mr.
Paramathma had sought information from Medical Council of Andhra Pradesh by
filing RTI when the Council replied to him saying that there were no such
guidelines in place over the usage of writing prescriptions which prompted the
pharmacist to approach the High Court.