Christof Maletsky
1 December 2008
MEMBERS of the Medical Association of Namibia (MAN) are heading to court to challenge Government's decision not to allow doctors to dispense medicine from their practices.
The Chairperson of MAN, Dr Hagen Fortsch, confirmed to The Namibian that they are aggrieved by Government's decision to ban them from giving patients medicine at their practices following amendments made to the Medicine and Related Substances Act.
"We feel that the regulation is not in the interest of the patients and we want to keep the right to dispense medicines.
We believe that the competition between pharmacies and doctors is a healthy thing," he said.
Johannes Gaeseb, registrar of the Namibia Medicines Regulator Council (NRC), said the amendments came into effect on August 1 this year and doctors were given three months to apply for licences to dispense medicine.
"The three months expired on October 31 and we wrote to them and told them that those without the licences were dispensing the medicine illegally," he said.
Gaeseb said doctors can still dispense medicine in emergencies and on accident scenes or call-outs but "cannot make it their business".
In smaller places where there are no pharmacies, he said, doctors will be licensed to dispense medicine to patients.
However, Fortsch said all doctors they spoke to have already been denied licences to dispense medicine.
"Their actions give the pharmacists the de facto right to dispensing.
In other countries this has led to price increases," he said.
He said the training for pharmacists was limited and therefore they cannot be the only ones to dispense medicine.
"It is a very essential profession but the regulation is giving the de facto monopoly to pharmacists.
It prevents competition and we wonder whether such pharmacists will now work 24 hours like doctors.
We all know that some pharmacies operate only certain hours of the day.
Does it also mean all towns and villages will get pharmacies?" he said.
The law had been under discussion for six years before it came into effect but Fortsch said its "true colours only came to the fore now".
"Our right to remove such a law is there and we can do it successfully.
We have the support of veterinarians and dentists.
We will also be approaching practising nurses who are also trained to dispense medicine," he said.
Those who agree with the new regulation claim that some doctors are making huge profits from dispensing medicine and their practices are becoming pharmacies in their own right while the treatment of patients is affected negatively.
"Yes, we earn money but the fact is that patients prefer it that way," Fortsch said.
"Mr Gaeseb must defend his actions in the court.
He refused to issue licences where he could have done that."
Doctors claim that the new regulations were copied from those introduced in South Africa some time ago.
The SA law was successfully challenged and the doctors believe that, with the help of their counterparts in SA, they can do the same here.
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