Which Health Act in Malaysia requires mandatory prescriptions today? The answer is none.
Why is it none? Because it doesn’t make sense as general practitioner (GP) clinics, for example, do not have a separate retail pharmacy.
Private GPs consult, diagnose, prescribe, and dispense if necessary as a package approach. That has been in practice for decades.
It would be ludicrous for a GP to fill up a prescription to oneself. It doesn’t work as well because it’s the same clinic without a separate retail pharmacy.
All prescriptions are required by law to be filled up in the prescription book, which is maintained in every clinic. If a patient requires a prescription to fill up in a community pharmacy, by law, the doctor is required to write out the prescription as requested.
Although this is quite simple, it’s one of the most challenging concepts for lawmakers to understand, who take a very simplistic view of what causes medical inflation without a root-cause analysis.
Simply put, major factors associated with medical inflation are high private hospital charges, monopolistic control of drugs/ medications/ medical equipment supplies, unregulated managed care organisations, and uneven playing fields among private health care players, with large entities gobbling up most part of the market share.
Out-of-pocket spending at GP clinics is relatively low. There is no or negligible medical inflation for the public in government health care!
Unfortunately the real issues are being ignored and untouched because these entities are too large to meddle with, even by the government.
GPs have become the bogeyman, by which attention is shifted away from governmental failure to provide adequate health care and coverage for all.
If government provision of health care is adequate for all, there is no need to worry about any medical inflation because governmental charges for the public have hardly risen an inch for many decades.
Please don’t find fault with other health care providers as they remain optional. The government should be concentrating on improving access and coverage to all.
Dr John Teo is a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist in private practice and a health care activist based in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah.
- This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of CodeBlue.
