Doctors asked to prescribe generic drugs

Antara News, Sun, February 13 2011

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Coordinating Minister for People`s Welfare Agung Laksono has reminded that doctors in all government hospital and other health care centers should prescribe generic drugs for their patients.

"It has been regulated that doctors at government health facility centers are obliged to prescribe generic drugs for their patients," the coordinating minister said here on Sunday.

With the prescription, patients could obtain generic drugs at pharmacies or at non-government health facility centers, he said.

He said that the aim of generic drug prescription was to alleviate the burden of patients and their families in buying medicines.

The prescription of cheaper generic drugs is also intended to inform people that they should not merely be tempted to purchase expensive drugs which might not be more effective than generic ones.

He said that generic drugs also came from branded medicines whose patent rights had expired so that their production cost was lower.

Therefore, he said, the popularization of generic drugs should be focused not only on low prices but also on their quality which was relatively the same as that of branded ones.

"Therefore, doctors and health workers at government hospitals, including at public health care centers, play a decisive role in encouraging people to use generic drugs," he said.

Editor: Aditia Maruli