GOVERNMENT has rejected a request by medical practitioners to put a moratorium on its earlier decision not to allow doctors to dispense medicine from their practices.
Dr Pieter Pretorius, speaking on behalf of members of the Medical Association of Namibia (MAN), told The Namibian that Government’s rejection of their request has forced them to challenge the whole implementation of the Medicine and Related Substances Act, which bars doctors from giving patients medicine at their practices.
The amendments came into effect on August 1 last year and doctors were given three months to apply for licences to dispense medicine.
When the three months expired on October 31, Johannes Gaeseb, registrar of the Namibia Medicines Regulator Council (NRC), wrote to them and told them that those without the licences were dispensing medicine illegally.
Pretorius said none of their members who applied for a licence was granted one.
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.
Pretorius said not a single pharmacist has applied for the dispensing of medicine while all doctors were forced to do so by law.
‘It’s only the doctors who are being harassed. We are definitely going to court,’ he said.
He was not sure when the case will be heard since it will depend on the availability of court dates.
Doctors feel that pharmacists’ training is limited and therefore they cannot be the only ones to dispense medicine.
The law had been under discussion for six years before it came into effect.
Doctors also argue that they have the right to remove the law and believe they can do it successfully as they have the support of veterinarians, dentists and practising nurses who are also trained to dispense medicine.
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.
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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