Prohibition For Doctors To Meet With Medical Representatives During Working Hours: Pavlograd To Be The Next

Apteka.ua

Recently it became known that the Healthcare Department of the Pavlograd City Council issued Order No. 85 of October 17^th, 2017 (hereinafter referred to as the Pavlograd Order), which duplicated the previously issued order of the Healthcare Department of the Dnipro City Council No. 473 dated September 14^th, 2017 (hereinafter - the Dnipro Order ), which establishes additional restrictions related to the visits of medical representatives to healthcare institutions.

Thus, in Pavlograd, as in Dnipro, communal healthcare facilities imposed a ban on communication with business entities that produce or sell medicines, medical supplies, dietary supplements and food products for special dietary nutrition and others (we still do not know what these "others" are) and with their representatives during working hours.

It should be noted that the Pavlograd Order almost completely duplicates the Dnipro Order, except for one detail. As a result, the Pavlograd Order inherited all the shortcomings of the Dnipro Order, and also has its own. So, if the Dnipro Order was firstly addressed to chief physicians of healthcare facilities, the Healthcare Department of Pavlograd City Council decided to address its order to medical personnel immediately.

Let us remind you that the ban mentioned above goes beyond the limitations established for medical workers by the legislation of Ukraine, in particular, Article 78-1 of the Law of Ukraine "Fundamentals of Legislation of Ukraine on Healthcare". Thus, this prohibition is the new rule.

In our opinion, the establishment of new mandatory standards for medical workers (including employees of enterprises, institutions and organizations that are part of the administration of Pavlograd City Council) clearly goes beyond the authority of the Healthcare Department of Pavlograd City Council, which may be the reason for cancelling this order in court.

In addition, thanks to this feature of the Pavlograd Order, it is absolutely unclear who should perform its remaining paragraphs (which could be guessed from the Dnipro Order).

In particular, paragraph 6 of the Pavlograd Order, like the Dnipro Order, obliges someone to issue orders for healthcare facilities about the restrictions imposed on medical workers during their professional activities. Paragraph 7 obliges someone to provide copies of such orders to the Department.

Again, like the Dnipro Order, the Pavlograd Order establishes that the validity period (not the due date) of paragraphs 6 and 7 expires on October 20^th, 2017. That is, by the time of writing of this comment, the paragraphs have already expired.

Instead of the conclusion, I would like to emphasize once again that the need to regulate the interaction of medical representatives with medical workers is certainly overdue, but the classical method of unleashing the Gordian knot is clearly not suitable for this situation, besides, the issued orders do not much resemble the sword of Alexander the Great.

Earlier, the Association of Producers of Innovative Drugs "APRAD" reacted on the prohibitions established by Order No. 473 by sending letters on November 1^st to Boris Filatov, the chairman of the Dnipro City Council, with a copy to Uliana Suprun, the acting Minister of Health.