BRATISLAVA, July 7, (WEBNOVINY) — Physicians will likely be required to prescribe medicines by listing the active ingredient used for patients’ treatments, beginning September 2011. At the same time, they will also be able to state the commercial name of the drug. Further, pharmacists will be obliged to offer a patient the least expensive available medicine. However, the patient will be allowed to pick a different medication, rather than the drug offered. What’s more, health insurance companies will regularly, at least once a month, report to doctors which medicine a patient purchased. This stems from a draft amendment to the law on drugs, which MPs moved to the second reading on Thursday.
The norm is a compromise concept, as Health Minister Ivan Uhliarik previously stated. He initially proposed writing generic prescriptions for 40 percent of all drugs, with some 380 active ingredients available in Slovakia. This suggestion was supported by health insurance companies and pharmacists, but opposed by physicians. Even some ruling coalition MPs voiced reservations toward the original plan.
In early June, ambassadors from seven countries asked Slovak Prime Minister Iveta Radicova, in a letter, to make changes to the draft bill on drugs and the draft bill on the scope and conditions of payments for drugs. The Cabinet approved both revisions in June. Radicova noted that the letter was signed by diplomats from countries with very strong pharmaceutical companies – Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Switzerland, Great Britain and the United States. “I consider it pure lobbying. It is beyond diplomacy and political decency,” she stated.
The prime minister reported that no concrete facts were included in the letter, except for the request for the government’s respect for demands of pharmaceutical companies. She labeled the letter an attempt to interfere in transparency and in the solution of a conflict of interest. She said that in the past year, the most pressure she has had to endure has been in association with these bills.
SITA