prescription necessary???

[emilie]

I tried buying Dimetapp and Loviscol syrup (for colds and cough) for my daughter in Mercury Drug and they asked me for a prescription! I've bought these medicines over the counter before. I asked my daughter's pedia and she said there's a memo from DOH I think, saying that prescriptions are necessary already. I have an officemate who couldn't buy her baby's vitamins now(kasi may Rx) without a prescription!

What are the details of this new policy? Do we need prescriptions just for medicines for kids or even for stuff like paracetamol?

[Ira]

We've been getting a lot of complaints from patients regarding the strictness of drugstores the past 1 month. This has been a reaction to news articles about overpricing of drugs by the manufacturers. The government cracked down on this and other drug dispension problems, and DOH is giving drugstores and drug companies hell. They have a new policy out, requiring all prescriptions to have both generic and brand names (as should be the case naman, actually). However, drugstores took it to the extreme, na pati Biogesic (Paracetamol) dinamay, as well as other over-the-counter meds like Loviscol(Carbocisteine)--which are over-the-counter meds even in the US--require prescription. Hopefully, this overreaction to new laws will fade in the near future. But right now, the only way to get even over-the-counter meds is to go to your friendly neighborhood physician. The problem with this law is they want to cut down on drug cost, but patients end up spending money anyway because they have to pay a physician's consultation fee just to get paracetamol.