PESHAWAR, June 18: Frequent unscheduled visits by medical  representatives are affecting the performance of hospitals, doctors and health workers told Dawn on Tuesday.

“Despite warnings by the administrations, the medical representatives visit the hospitals in rush hours, creating problems for the patients  and doctors,” said a doctor.  

They had been banned from visiting the Khyber Teaching Hospital, Lady Reading Hospital and Hayatabad Medical Complex but they visit those hospitals, he said.

The pharmaceutical firms employ smart and articulate young men to promote their products. They are required to convince the doctors to prescribe the products of their firms to the patients.   The medical representatives should be pharmacy graduates, so that they can understand the ingredients, doses and side-affects of the drugs, but many of them don’t have the qualification.

The competition among the drug manufacturers for the Rs40 billion drug market in the country has compelled some of them to resort to unethical tactics for the promotion and sale of their products.

The representatives offer medical samples, gifts, including air-conditioners, refrigerators and airline tickets, arrange seminars in posh hotels and even allegedly offer bribes to the doctors to woo them into prescribing their products.

In return, the doctors allegedly prescribe their medicines to the patients in the government hospitals but in their private clinics, they prescribe quality drugs.

Some doctors have stopped the medical representatives from visiting their wards and out-patient departments, arguing that there is no need to be briefed by them.

They say that the companies concerned, like in the United States and the United Kingdom, should keep direct contact with the doctors and inform them through medical journals and booklets about their drugs.

The attention of the medical representatives remains on the government hospitals. They visit the OPDs in rush hours and many doctors prescribe their products to the patients. The patients, sometimes, are forced by the doctors to buy unnecessary drugs.

Lately, the pharmaceutical companies, through the medical representatives, have been providing money for making counters and cupboards in wards and OPDs and for buying equipment for the hospitals. The companies’ involvement in hospital affairs has increased very much and they are involved in making of signboards, bed-markings and financial support to the doctors. The expenses made on the doctors and maintenance of hospitals are recovered from the patients by drug manufacturers.

“We have requested the authorities to ban entry of medical representatives in the hospitals but their visits have not stopped,” said a surgeon. According to him, the consultants come to the OPDs only for two hours and much of this time is wasted by the medical representatives.

The medical representatives are also seen in the wards, laboratories and medical stores of the  hospitals.  

In some hospitals, the doctors prescribe new drugs, which are available at specific stores, to the patients.

Recently, the city’s hospitals banned the representatives’ entry in the evening shift during the IBP, but the ban has not proven effective.