Editorial
Indiscipline at govt. hospitals
An added dimension
Patients visiting government hospitals have been known to suffer various forms of harassments. From getting beds at the hospitals to availability of proper food and services they are made to pay for almost everything. They are lured to private hospitals. They are sometimes forced to purchase date-expired medicines and re-cycled materials for treatment.
Now we learn medical representatives of pharmaceutical companies crowding different hospitals of the city to promote their products. We appreciate the necessity of product promotion and competition among the traders but the hospital authorities should see to it that the patients don't suffer for this.
As it is, the patient-doctor ratio is far from satisfactory. Hospitals should have fixed time and dates for the drug promoters. Doctors must also be obliged to give their full time attention to the patients; they are expected to be highly professional and we believe many of them are, in their approach to drug promotion activities. They should spurn gifts to dish out favour to a particular company regardless of the quality of its drugs.
Hospitals doctors usually attend patients from 8:00 am to 2:30 pm and medical representatives are supposed to be allowed to see the doctors when there is no patient in his room. Most of the hospitals have specific time and date set for the drug promoters. It is only a matter of following rules.
So aggressive some of their salesmanship can be that even when their entry is restricted they allegedly resort to unfair means by collecting outdoor tickets as patients and enter doctor's chambers. They even dare check patients' prescriptions to see if drugs manufactured by their companies have been prescribed. Around 20,000 medical representatives are at work for 246 registered pharmaceutical companies.
It is the duty of the hospital authorities to ensure that the work of hospitals is not impeded nor the patients harassed in anyway during the hospital hours.
The health ministry may look into the issue.
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