Non-prescription medicine for a reported patient. 4 patient groups on the table

Turkish Pharmacists Association Secretary General Taner Ercanlı made evaluations on the issue to NTV.

According to Ercanlı, pharmacies are ready for implementation in terms of infrastructure and equipment.

Stating that the subject is very new and there is no clear information about which disease groups there are and which drug groups they cover, Ercanlı said, "In the first place, our pharmacists and the system can work much more healthily, especially in disease groups such as blood pressure, diabetes, asthma and COPD. We can start from here and follow a process. Then, this can be expanded for other disease groups." he said.

Pointing out that the aim is to prevent patients from going to doctors only for prescriptions at certain periods for regularly used drugs as a result of chronic diseases, Ercanlı said, "Currently, our pharmacies serve as primary health care providers at more than 31 thousand points in Türkiye. Our pharmacists can ease the burden on health in the process of regular prescription of these drugs." he said.

According to information obtained by NTV, the regulation is aimed to be made by the end of the year.

Minister of Health Kemal Memişoğlu summarized the regulation planned to be implemented as follows:

"- Let's say a report has been written. You have a medication report for 6 months. Once a medication is prescribed, you can buy it directly from the pharmacy until the doctor makes a change about that medication. In other words, you do not need to go to the doctor again and have a second medication prescribed.

- We are working on a system that will ensure that the drug can be purchased from the pharmacy in monthly doses during the valid period of the drug report. "Hopefully, we will put it at the service of our people very soon."

The Minister of Health stated that they aim to make the medicine available during the period when the medicine report is valid for citizens who have a medicine report due to a chronic disease, rather than having to go to the doctor every time to have their medicines prescribed, and said, "We will provide comfort to our patients who use medicines that are linked to more than one report and have to have these medicines prescribed at different times." he said.

Minister Memişoğlu said, "This is also an important thing because we are trying to bring health care to our citizens. We are especially trying to ensure that the elderly group can access health care at home without coming to the hospital." he said.