Medical warnings and usage labels will be provided to pharmacies by June to ensure that consumers get the appropriate information when buying prescription drugs.
"We have monthly reports of violations of medical labeling requirements and on average we've found that about 10 percent of Taiwan's pharmacies do not meet our requirements," said Director of the Bureau of Medical Affairs at the Department of Health, Wang Hui-po (
On Tuesday, the Taiwan Health Reform Foundation also released the results of an investigation into the labeling of prescription drugs. The foundation found that only 30 percent of hospitals, 1.7 percent of clinics and 1 percent of pharmacies fully met with the department's labeling standards. These require that the name of the medication, usage instructions, warnings, the patient's name, the pharmacist's name and other information are clearly labeled on the medicine's packaging.
Wang said yesterday that the foundation's figures were inaccurate and too high.
He said that, due to a lack of comprehensive information, the department would be conducting a nationwide investigation within the next two months to learn more about the labeling practices and violations of hospitals, clinics and pharmacies.
"Most pharmacies print or write out usage instructions and the patient's name. It's the warnings and side effects that are usually left out," Wang said.
Horng Jang-rong (洪章榮), executive director of the National Union of Pharmacist Associations, said that smaller pharmacies and clinics, many of whom pack prescription drugs in plastic bags, usually write out all the required information. He suggested that paper bags be used to facilitate the printing of medical information.
Wang said that to aid pharmacies and clinics in providing the necessary drug information to patients, the Medical Affairs Bureau would be issuing a compact disc that would include all the relevant information needed for over 200 different prescription drugs.
"Clinics and pharmacies can print out the information about the drug being prescribed and hand it to patients along with the medicine," Wang said.
"However, this initiative needs to be backed up with plans to help smaller clinics and pharmacies store their information in electronic format," he said.
Horng also said that the union was working on compiling a list of frequently used medical warnings. In the future, the union would provide these warnings to pharmacies as labels, to cut down on the amount of time needed to print or write the warnings.
He said that the union would be pushing for the use of medicine bottles with safety caps instead of plastic bags.
"The medicine bottles would be safer as children would be unable to open the bottle and accidentally ingest medication," Horng said.
He said that for chronic disease patients on a long-term medication regimen, the tinted medicine bottles would prevent changes to the drugs that could occur when they are exposed to light.
In addition, the Bureau of Medical Affairs announced that surveys conducted by the department in November last year revealed that 63.4 percent of poll participants were concerned that the lack of medical information provided with prescription drugs could lead to unsafe usage, which could lead to fatalities.
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