Patients of different hospitals in the capital have repeatedly complained about the illegible handwriting of doctors. Even salesmen at pharmacies often face a tough time as they are unable to make out the exact names of medicines prescribed by doctors. While visiting different hospitals in the city, including Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) and Dhaka Medical College (DMC), The Independent has come across several prescriptions with illegible handwriting. Not a single prescription was found written in block letters.

Iqbal Hossain (24), who came from Bikrampur to the BSMMU, said his doctor prescribed him three medicines. “When I walked into a pharmacy near the hospital, the salesmen couldn’t make out the names of the medicines as most of the words were illegible,” he added. Another patient, Ayesha Begum, complained about a similar problem, saying that she had gone to a doctor for consultation a couple of days back. “I could hardly read the doctor’s prescription as his handwriting was illegible. I had to go back to the doctor again to find out the names of the medicines,” she said.

Abdul Jalil, father of a patient, wondered how a doctor could have such an atrocious handwriting.

Some pharmacies from in front of the DMC and BSSMU have told this correspondent that they rarely find prescriptions written clearly in block letters. They also said owing of the poor handwriting, sometimes they had to send the patients back to the doctors to know the medicine names.

When this correspondent was talking to a salesman at a pharmacy in front of the BSMMU, a patient came with a prescription to buy medicines. The names of those medicines were hardly legible. The salesmen had to take the help of his senior colleague to provide the medicines to the patient.

Earlier, Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh had filed a writ before the High Court on the issue.

In January 9, 2017, a High Court bench, comprising Justice Naima Haydar and Justice Abu Taher Md Saifur Rahman, issued a rule asking doctors to either write prescriptions in clear block letters or type them out. The director general of the health department and the Bangladesh Medical Association secretary were instructed to carry out the directive within four weeks.

When contacted, several doctors claimed that their handwriting became bad because of the speed at which they write prescriptions for a large number of patients. “It’s very tough to prescribe medicines to a large number of patients within a limited time at the outdoor department at government hospitals. And that’s why it becomes difficult for us to write the names of medicines very

clearly,” one of them said. The World Health Organisation (WHO) says that unreadable prescriptions could lead to fatal mistakes. It is the legal duty of doctors to prescribe medicines clearly, it adds.

Contacted, Syed Moszaffar Ahmed, professor of the physical medicine and rehab department at BSMMU, told The Independent that it was true that some prescriptions were unreadable. “To resolve the problem, we are working to make the whole department computerised. We have already signed an agreement with the World Bank regarding this,” he said.