Some of the recent cases and Interventions.

Explanation: -

Dear all, I would like to share one very simple prescription as evidence (Taken from Primary care centre), which reveals the actual scenario of health care service at public sector (i.e How it affects public health and government budget?) and the urgent need to implement some frame work to look after patient safety strictly! . Kindly go through the above prescription.

The attached prescription is written for a 25 years old female patient at Primary Care Centre.

C/O
 Throat Pain for last 4 -5 days
 Feeling difficulty to engulf food
 Burning sensation around sternum

Based on above complaints she was prescribed with Vitamin B-Complex tablets for 5 days with gargle. After finishing the course of treatment for 5 days she was not even able to drink water and stopped eating completely!. Then she visited me for a free counseling, I took her through history and found it as a case of GERD and recommended her the following:-

1.  Generic version of (As she is economically disadvantaged) Proton Pump Inhibitor (Pantoprazole) and a Prokinetic (Domperidone) from Jan Aushadhi Store
2. Elevation of pillow at bed time
3.  Food counseling.

After 3 days of taking these drugs she became normal.

Note:- If she was just going to be treated with Vitamin B-Complex tablets without proper diagnosis   

           then the secondary complication could be even Esophageal Carcinoma!

            General / Clinical Audit of the attached prescription is as follows:-

1. The prescription is not a valid prescription as there is no name or signature or registration number of the prescribing physician (In case of negligence issue who will be accountable? Not following the basics of ethical medical practice)
2. Although the above vital points are missing but the Pharmacist dispensed the prescription (Invalid Prescription) blindly! As he assumes what doctor wrote is appropriate and he is diploma in pharmacy with poor training (Indian Context).
3. Diagnosis is missing in the prescription! So, on what basis or guideline the physician prescribed the drug?
4. The prescriber for this prescription is an M.B.BS i.e a medical prescriber not a non medical prescriber, so whether intentionally/unintentionally he is doing this?
5. Huge loss to government as it may be just 10 tablets of vitamin B Complex in this prescription but there was no actual need of it for the patient. Further, there are thousands of public hospitals and may be millions and millions of prescriptions having unnecessary drugs which may have a very high impact on government budget it may be in thousand or crores !!!!!!!