A group of dispensing doctors will ask the Pretoria High Court on Thursday to set aside the May 2 deadline which will make it an offence for doctors to dispense medication without a new licence.
National Convention on Dispensing (NCD) spokesperson Norman Mabasa said the doctors wanted the deadline set aside so that they could ask the Constitutional Court for a ruling on whether it was necessary for them to reapply for a licence they were automatically given when they qualified as doctors.
Under the Medicines and Related Substances Act, by May 2 doctors, nurses and dentists who dispense medicine must obtain a dispensing licence from the Department of Health or they will be breaking the law, unless they are dispensing emergency medicine.
Meanwhile, the NCD and the Department of Health appear to be reaching agreement on certain aspects of the law, Mabasa said.
Dispensing doctors will no longer have to place a 30-day newspaper advertisement stating their intention to dispense medicine, and they were also negotiating the necessity of having to supply demographic information of the community they intended to serve.
The restriction on the number of pharmacies within a 5km radius was also being discussed. ”We want to be turned down because of a criminal offence or malpractice, and not on the basis of competition by another pharmacy,” Mabasa said.
”I think doctors will apply now and will find it an administrative procedure instead of an elimination process,” Mabasa said.
Doctors also have to complete a course on dispensing to get their licences.
Although they have had a year to comply since the Act came into force, very few doctors and dispensing health care workers actually have their licences, raising concerns for the well-being of the hundreds of thousands of patients who use their consultation and medication package deals.
In spite of assurances, the NCD is still concerned that medical aids might not honour claims from unlicensed doctors.
The NCD is also worried that drug companies will not let doctors buy the emergency medication they are allowed to dispense.
Comment was not immediately available from the Department of Health. – Sapa