A few minutes after consulting a doctor at the Telangana Government Area Hospital in Golconda, 53-year-old N. Atmaram holds up the medicine prescription sheet close to his face. His vision is marred by cataract, and he moves the sheet up and down repeatedly, struggling to make sense of the illegible writing and figure out when to take the medicines.
Though the pharmacist there had explained the instructions through a narrow window of the drug store, it was not easy for him to memorise.
This is not an isolated incident. Several elderly patients visiting State-run healthcare facilities, especially those who are not uneducated, were unable to exactly recall pharmacists’ instructions regarding medicine intake.
English hurdle
Some of the area hospitals issue prescription sheets which have three columns with headings ‘Morning’, ‘Afternoon’, and ‘Evening’. However, this is not an uniform format for all government hospitals. Moreover, the headings are in English, a language that a majority of patients visiting State-run hospitals would be familiar with.
Besides, not all patients are issued the same sheet with those columns at the Golconda Area Hospital, and the columns are not put to use for all patients at various area hospitals. Doctors at major government hospitals said they prescribe medicines on the out-patient sheet, which is blank.
Multi-lingual sheets
Patients, doctors, and health staff are unanimous in their opinion that the prescription sheets provided at all government hospitals should have the ‘Morning’, ‘Afternoon’, and ‘Evening’ headings, written not just in English but also in Telugu, Urdu, Hindi, for better understanding by patients.
“The pharmacist explains instructions about how to medicines. But how many people can remember them after a few days, or the same night? It is easy to get confused and take a wrong dosage,” says a senior doctor.
Scan for convenience
Another doctor suggests that a mechanism must be introduced to scan all prescriptions where the medical history of a patient is jotted down: “A few patients forget to bring their prescription sheets during follow-up visits. Scanned copies help us recall the patient’s history, the medicines advised and the dosage. This also helps if a different doctor checks the patient.”
