In September, pharmacies will tighten the rules of sale: how to buy antibiotics and painkillers

The pharmacist explained the new conditions for controlling the sale of medicines

From the first day of autumn, an important addition to the rules for the operation of pharmacies comes into force: the state register (we know it from the qar codes on the packaging of medicines and other categories of goods) will need to enter data on the prescriptions for which each product is sold. That is, it becomes technically impossible to sell a prescription drug without a prescription. However, there is an important caveat: not all prescription drugs will be accounted for so strictly. Which categories of medicines will be subject to piece-by-piece state accounting – “MK” was told by a pharmacist of one of the pharmacies.

Pharmacists will enter prescription data only when selling those drugs that were previously restricted in circulation, said Asiyat Aliyeva, a pharmacist at one of the network pharmacies in the capital. Note: in the reports of Roszdravnadzor, published in August, it was primarily about psychotropic, potent and toxic substances.

– There are numbered prescription forms, and we will enter their data, – the interlocutor of MK noted. – These are drugs, narcotic, potent and a number of others. And we have an invasion of people who buy up antibiotics – and so, they are sold according to non-numbered prescriptions, there is no date of discharge and number, there is nothing to add to the database.

Recall that the order of the Ministry of Health of Russia No. 183n dated April 22, 2014 regulates the list of drugs subject to quantitative accounting: these are narcotic drugs and their precursors, psychotropic, potent and poisonous, as well as others included in the list. Antibiotics or painkillers, as categories of medicines, are not included in this list, although individual positions may be entered there by the “force of will” of departments.

– There will also be a strict accounting of preferential prescriptions, but this is so that they are not used many times, – added Asiyat Aliyeva. – With the rest of the prescription drugs, everything remains as usual.

However, the pharmacist summed up, much is determined not by government regulations, but by the internal regulations of pharmacy chains. So, in some networks it is customary to ask for a prescription for antibiotics or non-narcotic strong painkillers, in others the pharmacist is advised to simply make sure that a person is buying this drug knowingly. How these rules will change is still unknown.

“One way or another, it will still be possible to buy an antibiotic without a prescription on the form, don’t worry, everything remains the same,” the MK interlocutor added.