MOPH issues policy for Thai hospitals to promote appropriate medicine use

[webfact]

MOPH issues policy for hospitals to promote appropriate medicine use

BANGKOK, 31 October 2014 (NNT) – The Ministry of Public Health is issuing a policy for hospitals to promote appropriate use of medicines, to improve safety for patients.

According to Dr. Surachet Sathitniramai, deputy permanent secretary of the Ministry of Public Health, the World Health Organization has found that 50% of medication used is inappropriate; patients are subjected to unnecessary side effect risks in addition to direct effects of the drugs. Inappropriate use also constitutes wasteful spending on unnecessary medicines. In the case of Thailand, 144.5 billion baht is spent on medicines each year.

The new policy calls for hospitals to promote reasonable use of medicines by working with the Pharmacy and Therapeutic Committee, raising public awareness of drug information and drug labels, providing hospitals with tools necessary for ensuring appropriate drug use, reinforcing the conscience of medical personnel and patients, ensuring safety for special populations, and reinforcing ethics related to prescription of medicines.

The Ministry of Public Health has signed a collaboration agreement with eight other agencies to promote this policy at hospitals. The aim is to increase consumer safety, increase efficiency of drug use and reduce the time an individual remains on medication.


-- NNT 2014-10-31

[jaltsc]

"The Ministry of Public Health is issuing a policy for hospitals to promote appropriate use of medicines, to improve safety for patients."

Isn't patient safety supposed to be taught in medical and nursing schools? If a government body has to explain "Do no harm" to health professionals, perhaps the standards need to be raised for all medical staffs, no matter where the hospital is located.

"The new policy calls for hospitals to promote reasonable use of medicines by working with the Pharmacy..."

Who were they working with before, the janitorial staff? As for me, whenever I need advice on medication, I go to a reputable pharmacist. All the doctors I've dealt with here know one word when it comes to medication...antibiotics.

[Thai at Heart]

This wasn't the case before. Huh?

Yay for the hub of health tourism.

[JacChang]

Thailand is still acceptable. Taiwan is the worst. Everytime you go in for a simple problem, they inject you with 2 vaccines or antibiotics, then give you 5 bags of medicine where only 1 bag would be directly related to your sickness. 4 others are like, painkillers, even though you haven't told them of any pain, sleeping pills, again no mention of sleeping problems.

Crazy.

We seriously have moved from helping people, to using people's health to make business.

Pharmaceutical companies regularly visit doctors just like sales. Informing them of their drugs, and the commission they would get for prescribing them. I've even had an experience at one of the larger hospitals in Thailand where I was prescribed some "other medications" that was completely irrelevant to my sickness. Moral of the story, patients are not the main concern.

Main concern? If doctors can distribute their daily quota of medicines, they win. Sales revenue goes up for pharmaceutical companies. Patients? Mai pen rai..... it's long term serious health affect, no direct link to the medicine.

[Balance]

Thailand is still acceptable. Taiwan is the worst. Everytime you go in for a simple problem, they inject you with 2 vaccines or antibiotics, then give you 5 bags of medicine where only 1 bag would be directly related to your sickness. 4 others are like, painkillers, even though you haven't told them of any pain, sleeping pills, again no mention of sleeping problems.

Crazy.

We seriously have moved from helping people, to using people's health to make business.

Pharmaceutical companies regularly visit doctors just like sales. Informing them of their drugs, and the commission they would get for prescribing them. I've even had an experience at one of the larger hospitals in Thailand where I was prescribed some "other medications" that was completely irrelevant to my sickness. Moral of the story, patients are not the main concern.

Main concern? If doctors can distribute their daily quota of medicines, they win. Sales revenue goes up for pharmaceutical companies. Patients? Mai pen rai..... it's long term serious health affect, no direct link to the medicine.

Exactly what was happening in the USA 20 years ago until the press and Television investigative journalists did their job and called out the pharmaceutical companies and the large, national pharmacy chains integrated drug interaction software into their systems. Though very difficult to accomplish short term, Thais should question what exactly the medicine is suppose to do and the practice of doctors dispensing drugs should be stopped and allow the pharmacists do their job.

[noahvail]

I would love to see all doctors have an iPad or similar with him/her at all times, with available software on contraindicated drug interactions. A new doc at the local hospital prescribed a med for off-label use, which is fine and legal, and I had used it in the past for its approved use. I had shown him all my meds...it's a good check to make on a slightly spurious computer system. But as soon as I started taking it that med I felt hot, my ears were burning and ringing, I could hear my pulse in my ears, and I was quite dizzy from time to time. So I checked with mims.com, and it came back with a level 4 contraindication, with stroke or heart attack being the usual outcome.

I've learned my lesson. I always used to check mims or rxlist.com before I would take any med. The one time I didn't, it could well have killed me, and they would have attributed it to natural causes.

Well, I suppose for every doctor that graduates at the top of his class, there's another who graduated at the bottom.

[gamini]

"The Ministry of Public Health is issuing a policy for hospitals to promote appropriate use of medicines, to improve safety for patients."

Isn't patient safety supposed to be taught in medical and nursing schools? If a government body has to explain "Do no harm" to health professionals, perhaps the standards need to be raised for all medical staffs, no matter where the hospital is located.

"The new policy calls for hospitals to promote reasonable use of medicines by working with the Pharmacy..."

Who were they working with before, the janitorial staff? As for me, whenever I need advice on medication, I go to a reputable pharmacist. All the doctors I've dealt with here know one word when it comes to medication...antibiotics.

You must have consulted some very strange doctors. As far as my experience of many years here I consider Thai doctors a lot better than in many other countries.

[jamiesilver]

Been saying this for years, after working closely with Thailand hospitals - they over subscribe drugs purely for profit.

if you get a cold they will give you a concoction of 4 different coloured pills, usually cheap generic brand name pills in a plastic bag with some unfathomable writing on them in byro.

These little pills when you have to pay for them will often cost 5 times more than the local pharamacy charges, and you have very little you can do or say to get out of paying for them, because you have no idea what it is they they are, if you are lucky a good hospital with have the name in english but unless you are going to challenge the doctor during a consult as to what exactly he is giving you - expect to get ripped off....

Seriously, watch what you are given in Thai hospitals...

Edited October 31, 2014 by jamiesilver

[surangw]

does this mean they won't be giving out 5 different packets of pills for the sniffles ?