A new amendment to the Health Law could allow pharmacists to dispense certain drugs without a prescription. The objective: to help patients in the event of a “minor emergency” on evenings and weekends.
Enable patients to treat cystitis, otitis or conjunctivitis by providing them, in the evenings and weekends, with drugs normally prescribed by prescription: this may soon be possible for pharmacists.
It is in any case the wish of Thomas Mesnier. While the Health Law will be debated next month in the National Assembly, the majority deputy has just tabled an amendment to this effect, reveals France News this Thursday, February 28.
Facilitate access to care
The objective of this amendment is simple: to be able to “help out” patients who, during weekends or in the evening, wish to treat a benign condition for which pharmacists usually require a prescription from a doctor.
“In the event of a minor emergency, it is often difficult for the French to have access to a solution apart from going to the emergency room when a general practitioner is not available”, explains to our colleagues from France Info Carine Wolf-Tahl, pharmacist in Rouen and president of the Order of Pharmacists, at the origin of the text. “What we are proposing is that pharmacists in pathologies that we will say are benign or minor emergencies, can deliver a drug that is normally prescribed by a doctor, such as cystitis, conjunctivitis, small inflammatory dermatitis.”
According to the President of the Order of Physicians, this amendment meets a real need. “In real life, it happens to us […] that pharmacists dispense without a prescription. It is therefore precisely to regulate these practices, secure these practices and facilitate access to care that we would be delighted to see this amendment see the light of day.
However, there is no question of authorizing the delivery of drugs for severe or serious pathologies: the text clearly specifies that strict rules will be set out, and that they will be implemented in agreement with the attending physicians.
This is not the first time that MP Thomas Mesnier has tabled an amendment calling for the dispensing of non-prescription drugs by pharmacies. Last fall, a similar text was rejected by the Assembly during the vote on the Social Security financing law. The main doctors’ unions strongly opposed it, arguing that the health of patients could be endangered in the event of a diagnostic error made by pharmacists.
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