Patients, their attendants and people in general have welcomed the ban on the entry of the pharmaceutical company representatives to Rajshahi Medical College Hospital, taking effect from Thursday morning.
The decision, taken on August 4 in a meeting of RMCH staff led by its director Brigadier General Abdus Sabur Mia, restricted the movement of the medical representatives of pharmaceutical companies in the hospital that the physicians could pay more attention to the patients.
Earlier, the MRs, sometimes also termed as medical promotion officers, were allowed to enter the doctors’ chambers at RMCH every Thursday and Saturday.
Sources in the RMCH said, many MRs offered cash and other incentives to the physicians to prescribe medicines manufactured by their companies, while many of them visited the doctors on the hospital premises even on the days they were not permitted.
The RMCH patients, admitted in different wards, told New Age on Thursday that on the first day of the ban they saw a few MRs on the hospital premises and the chaos was also much tolerable than it was earlier.
The physicians were also paying better attention to the patients, they said.
Sohel Rana, a student of Rajshahi University who was admitted to the medicine
department of the hospital, said, ‘In my earlier visits here I found much difficulties to have myself examined by the doctors but today I could see the doctor rather easily.’
Jamil Hossain Johny, a resident of Rajpara in the city, described his plight when he brought his mother to RMCH for treatment several months ago.
‘After examining her, the doctor prescribed a medicine and asked me to get it from a pharmacy. When I came out of his chamber all the medical representatives hanging out there jumped on me to check the prescription. I was simply frightened the way they dragged the prescription just to know which drug he wrote,’ he said, observing that the ban should have come much earlier.
A ward boy of Ward 14, preferring anonymity, said earlier, the MRs intruded into the physicians’ chambers, ignoring the patients waiting on the queues, and forced the doctors to listen to their descriptions of the drugs produced by their companies.
‘A huge waste of time it was,’ he commented.
Liakat Ali and Zamaat Khan, respective president and general secretary of pressure group Rajshahi Rakkha Sangram Parishad, thanked the RMCH administration for the move.
They had now called on them to address the other issues seriously affecting the service of the hospital, namely pilferage of drugs, bad hygienic condition and maltreatment of the medical staff with the patients and their attendants.
Meanwhile, the Association of Medical Representatives in Rajshahi was disappointed at the ban.
Mozammel, an MR, denied that they intruded into the physicians’ time and services.
‘We never visit the doctors when they are busy with the patients,’ he said, demanding the withdrawal of the ban.
-With New Age input
