Stop medical representatives' aggressive promotion

Pharmaceutical firms employ smart and articulate young men to promote their products. They offer doctors drug samples and gifts to woo them to prescribe their products. These rush-hour visits by medical representatives to hospitals and doctors' chamber often cause inconvenience to patients. Recently, I went to Mymensingh Medical College Hospital to seek treatment of my dental pain. After taking a prescription from the dentist, a group of representatives of several pharmaceutical companies started capturing photos of my prescription, which was suggested by the dentist in the dental unit of of the hospital. It caused an unexpected situation, not only for me but also for other patients who arrived there as patients.
From my knowledge, it is quite clear that these medical representatives captured the image of my prescription forcefully only to see whether their companies' medicine was prescribed to me or not. This kind of practice hampers doctors' credibility to patients. It is time the government took steps to stop this kind of nuisance at least at public hospitals and ensure proper treatment for patients without any disturbance.

Sheikh Saymon Parves Himel,
Student of Pharmacy Department,
Mawlana Bhashani Science and Technology University, Tangail