PESHAWAR, May 17: All the three state-run-teaching hospitals here have banned the entry of medical representatives after 2pm, with a view to saving patients from rush in the second shift when doctors, following a bar on their private practice, are allowed to do institution-based practice (IBP).
“ The step has been taken in the wake of doctors’ complaints against the frequent visits of medical representatives that created problems at the out-patient departments (OPDs) for patients and doctors as well,” said an official at Lady Reading Hospital.
Notices, to prevent the sales promotion officers from entering, have been posted on notice boards in the hospitals— Lady Reading Hospital, Khyber Teaching Hospital and Hayatabad Medical Complex—, warning them of disciplinary action in case of violation of the directives.
Medical consultants and patients welcomed the decision, as the agents of pharma companies used to visit the OPDs in rush hours, which deprived the patients of privacy with their healers, and the doctors to concentrate on patients examination.
The pharmaceutical firms appoint a battery of articulate and handsome young sales persons who visit the doctors to promote their respective products. The firms also send samples of their products to the doctors and consultants, requesting them to prescribe their drugs.
“ Unlike this, there remains no concept of such marketing in the European countries where the drug makers keep direct correspondence with doctors through booklets and newsletters,” said a pharmacist at a local hospital.
He said the companies in advanced countries held symposiums, seminars and discussions to inform the doctors about the efficacy, price, making and expiry dates etc., of their products. But here the situation was different, he added and said the agents of the pharma companies here offered luxury gifts, sometimes even cash, to bribe the doctors who in turn prescribed the drugs to their patients out of need.
In some cases, the drug manufacturers even pay for the decoration of private clinics of the medical practitioners, send them to perform Umra or Haj and arrange seminars in five stars hotels. This practice of luring the healers goes unchecked from the authorities, and the cut-throat competition among the multinationals as well as local drug firms continues for grabbing the lion’s share from the Rs40 billion market of the medicines.
The doctors have also often been blamed for promoting some of the drugs illegally.
In the morning shift of the hospitals, these medical representatives throng at the OPDs even before the arrival of doctors, and sometimes outnumber the patients there. Though the hospitals had banned their entry during peak hours many times, they continued to follow their schedules.
Government’s inability to provide the required items to the hospitals has also given an opportunity to the drug makers to fill the gap by presenting stationery, signboards and decoration pieces etc. One can notice admission charts, discharge slips, laboratory and X-ray forms and even BP sets, stethoscopes, weighing machines, chairs, examination coaches and thermometers etc., in the wards of the state-run hospitals.—AY