The passions surrounding electronic prescriptions, which have caused chaos among citizens, are not abating.
As of March 1, a number of drugs, including antibiotics, should be sold exclusively by prescription, according to the government's decision. Many pharmacies could not switch to that system due to technical problems.
It was obvious that a number of pharmacies and citizens were bypassing this law and selling prescription drugs without a prescription.
Having not solved the old problems, a new draft on electronic prescriptions has been put up for discussion on the I-Draft platform of the Government on the instructions of the Minister of Health Anahit Avanesyan.
Accordingly, the new draft proposes to extend the transition to the electronic prescription writing process until January 1, 2027. In other words, additional time was given to the pharmacies operating in Armenia to equip themselves with the appropriate computers and to consult a doctor for the required medicines.
Health expert, human rights defender Anush Poghosyan told Euromedia24.com that it should be noted that the project launched in March did not serve its purpose. The reason, according to Poghosyan, was the failure to calculate the risks of the project in advance and the unnecessary haste to enforce the law.
"We have repeatedly warned that the system is not ready for the transition to electronic prescriptions. Let's note that as a result of this project, various inconveniences have arisen among the citizens," Poghosyan informed.
"From 2025, more than two thousand drugs should be sold by electronic prescription, but... In the draft platform, while presenting the project for public discussion, they wrote in the clarification that the system has not been evaluated yet. In other words, inconveniences may arise again.
Based on this, they postponed the adoption of the project for 2 years. The Ministry of Health agrees with the assessments that the program has not succeeded and it still remains on paper and continues to hang in the air," said the health expert.
Anush Poghosyan noted that the fact that drugs will be prescribed by prescriptions is an unexamined truth. Modern methods should be used and purchases should be made with prescriptions. The problem here is in the correct evaluation of the system. the entire healthcare system must be retooled. assured Poghosyan.
"When I say refurbish, I mean that hospitals, dental clinics and polyclinics should be equipped with appropriate computers, Internet, etc. Electronic outpatient cards will be introduced. After doing these steps and a number of other actions, the design system should be introduced. We start from the end," he emphasized.
"The capacity of the ARMED system should be evaluated, because the experience showed that just a few hours after the introduction of electronic prescriptions, when only 10-15% of RA were connected to it, it simply "exploded" and became a non-working system," he emphasized. The health expert.
And why didn't the Ministry of Health neutralize this or that problem from the beginning, and then started the implementation of this project? According to Poghosyan, the problem here is unprofessional work. In the Ministry of Health, they do not correctly assess the state of the system, risks and problems.
"They report to the Minister of Internal Affairs, Anahit Avanesyan, that everything is in order, that's it: we have what we have," concluded Poghosyan.
