Translated material
Eat medicines with packaging
The Ministry of Health of Russia forbade the production of medicines. Previously, you could come to the pharmacy and buy one tablet, ampoule or capsule of a very expensive medicine from a package designed for the entire course of treatment.
However, officials of the Ministry of Health banned this, and buyers are forced to purchase the entire box worth from 1 thousand rubles and above.
Distributors reacted to the ban on violating the packaging of drugs with approval. “This ban is positive for maintaining the quality of drugs,” the representative of the pharmaceutical company SIA International, Grigory Broud, explained to the newspaper. But pharmacy employees consider such a measure with a stick about the two ends. “On the one hand, the ban on violation of the secondary packaging of the medicine is the correct decision,” Olga Kuznetsova, head of the ICN No. 12 pharmacy No. 12, explained to the newspaper. - After all, the buyer, purchasing a medicine, must receive a blister with pills and an annotation. If we sell packaging in parts, then one of the buyers does not receive the necessary information about the medicine. ' On the other hand, the buyer loses, because he is forced to pay for full packaging, which often does not need. “Drug manufacturers should think about this problem and pack the medicines in smaller packages,” Kuznetsova explained to the newspaper.
True, in the new rules, the Ministry of Health also provided for some compensation for increasing the costs of customers. With the consent of the buyer, a pharmacy employee can replace the medicine indicated in a preferential prescription with a similar drug, but cheaper. So it was possible to do it before, but only with drugs that are released without a prescription or a paid prescription.
Representatives of the retail pharmacy network consider the new decision of the Ministry of Health important and correct. “Often the pharmacy does not have exactly the drug that is indicated in the recipe,” Olga Kuznetsova told the newspaper. “But, having bought a similar drug with the same active substance, the buyer receives exactly the treatment that the doctor recommended to him, and sometimes even for less money.” However, according to Kuznetsova, the pharmacist in no case has the right to replace the drug prescribed by the doctor with a drug with another active substance: 'It is not known which new drug will give side effects and whether it is compatible with other drugs that a person takes. "
According to the new requirements of the ministry, now not only in the pharmacy, but also in small mobile pharmacy points, it will be possible to purchase potent and toxic medicines, but still according to the recipe. Suppliers of drugs reacted to this proposal skeptical. “Most pharmacy points today are simply not ready to keep drugs that should be stored for certain temperature, sanitary and security regimes,” said Sergei Zhludov, general director of the Rosmedkomplekt distribution company. But employees of Moscow pharmacies consider this decision quite reasonable. “A pharmacy is an ordinary mini - - - -APTKE,” Olga Kuznetsova believes. - If she has a license to sell potent substances and all storage conditions are respected, then there is nothing dangerous in this. Here in the kiosks, in no case can it be allowed to sell potent substances and poisons, it is simply impossible to observe storage conditions.
The new document applies not only to the relationship of buyers and sellers, but also to the pharmacy business as a whole. By order of the department, Yuri Shevchenko, now the minimum area of pharmacies and pharmacy points, kiosks and stores may depend on how much the population lives nearby. The previous norms are at first about 70 square meters. m, and then 90 sq. m - allowed to survive only to large pharmacies. In rural areas, it was difficult to withstand the standards. “It does not make sense in a small village to open a pharmacy with an area of 80 or 100 meters and pay a huge rent for it,” Olga Kuznetsova agreed with the opinion of the Ministry of Health. - This is unprofitable for buyers: a pharmacy forced to pay a large amount for rent, raises the prices of medicines. "
10/24/2003 / Arina Sharipova