I refer to the letter Health minister making doctors ill .
I disagree with the writer. I don’t know for sure if he is a practicing medical doctor and if I will be supported by other doctors. However, here are my points.
Medical doctors are not in a money-making business. In current practice, doctors are also taking commissions from the medicine they sell on top of the consultation fees. I have tried to make a comparison of drug prices between clinics, and the result is that there is significant difference in the drug prices. Check this out for yourself and you will know it. Besides, with the current practice, doctors also have less choices of medicine for an illness and tend to give whatever sthat he/she has in his/her clinic. So it is not the best choice.
The pharmacist knows better about drugs than the doctor as they spent more years studying their trade than the doctor. So they should be the ones dispensing medicine and to suggest alternatives based on the patient’s budget.
Not anyone should dispense medicine at a pharmacy. First of all, before a pharmacy is opened, they should have met certain requirements before been allowed to operate. The government should be protecting the public and put in place the necessary requirements. Of course, the pharmacy can have helpers to dispense the medicine just like how it is currently at private clinics (the doctor will only prescribe, then the medicine is obtained from the counter).
However, when it comes to suggesting alternative or any other drug-related decision, the pharmacist of the pharmacy must take control. The pharmacy must be responsible for this as how the doctor should be responsible for the medical (or illness) investigations.
Currently, doctors are also reluctant to give the patient a copy of their investigation or prescription. Hence, the patient, in fact, gets less then what they pay for. The patient is unable to keep track of his health conditions and this also makes it hard to change doctors if one is found ineffective.
The Health Ministry should also look into this and make doctors accountable for their investigation/medication of a patient for the benefit of the public and Malaysian healthcare.
It is also wrong to say doctors will be out of job with this mechanism. I support this Health Ministry initiative and hope much thought will be given as to how it will be implemented. This to safeguard the public’s interest.
If possible, look into how it will translate into cost reductions and hence more savings for the public. I hope this implementation will also result in an overall cheaper healthcare cost. If it will not translate into a cheaper cost, most of the public will say that it will burden them when suffering illnesses.
Thus, the most crucial question the public has on their minds now is the distance between the pharmacy and the clinic? If you have visited India, you would have noticed that the pharmacy and the clinic are only side by side or few shops away. That is the ideal situation that Malaysia should have.
