Materia Medica Malaysiana

Doctors must label drugs prescribed

PETALING JAYA: Effective June, all private sector doctors must label the medicines they prescribed to patients clearly, or they will be penalised under Poisons Act 1952.
Health Minister Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek said the law has been enforced on government hospitals and clinics since last April but not on private entities.
"They must write clearly the name of patient, name of drug, name of dealer, dates given and whether it is a controlled medicine or only for external use.
"Private hospitals do the labelling but they usually do not give the name of drug, except for the generic name, such as antibiotics and flu medicine.
"Effective June, doctors in the private sector must also do proper labelling, otherwise they can be penalised RM5,000 or jailed for two years or both," he said.
Chua was speaking to reporters at the launching of Mesti Ambil Tahu! (Must Find Out) campaign at Sri Pentas, Bandar Utama here on Thursday.
Meant to inculcate consumers' awareness on the importance of proper medicine management, the campaign was a joint effort between TV3 and Pharmaniaga Bhd.
"By making it compulsory, hopefully it will increase patients' level of compliance and avoid chances of getting any adverse effects.
"It would also make it easier for patients to pass the information on to another doctor later," he added.
Chua admitted proper labelling may also result in patients resorting to self-medication as they can get it directly from the pharmacy since they already know the name of the drug.
However, he warned doctors not to make this as an excuse for not doing the proper labelling because patients have the right to know what medication they are on.
On a newspaper report medicine and prescription drugs would cost as much as 50 sen more per packet or bottle from next month, Chua said it was not accurate.
The increase was said to be due to a ministry's directive for all packaging of pharmaceuticals and traditional medicines to have security holograms to curb counterfeits.
He said the decision was made more than two years back and each hologram costs only 5.6 sen or, plus labour and other costs, 15 sen at the most.
Chua said pharmaceutical firms should not take advantage of the decision by simply increasing the price of their goods.
"It does not necessarily result in higher prices as they can still absorb it in other manufacturing costs." he said.