According to the agenda of the 8th Session, on November 21, the National Assembly will vote to pass the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Pharmacy.
During the discussions on the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Pharmacy, there were many comments on e-commerce drug trading. Accordingly, the issue of selling prescription drugs online was mentioned and supported by many delegates because the selling price will be more transparent.
Discussing in the hall, delegate Nguyen Lan Hieu (Binh Dinh Delegation) said he completely agreed to sell medicine through electronic transactions as in the draft because this is currently happening.
Delegate Nguyen Lan Hieu gave an example: we only need to send a Zalo message to the pharmacy and the medicine will be immediately "shipped" to your home. We cannot ban it, we need to strictly regulate it.
“In my opinion, the first thing to confirm is that drugs sold online must be licensed for circulation in Vietnam, because currently there are many hand-carried drugs such as functional foods brought back to sell online.
Second, drugs sold via e-commerce must include non-prescription drugs (OTC) and prescription drugs, but must be prescribed by medical facilities on the electronic prescription system, electronic medical records and electronic medical records," said delegate Nguyen Lan Hieu.
Also talking about this issue, delegate Nguyen Anh Tri (Hanoi delegation) said that there should be clearer regulations on digital transformation in all pharmaceutical activities in Vietnam.
"I think it should be added to Article 7 of the state's pharmaceutical policy," said delegate Nguyen Anh Tri, giving an example: online prescriptions need to be done and should be done gradually, resolutely and successfully.
Because according to this delegate, doing so will better manage the quality of prescriptions and the form of prescriptions, including a very common problem of many doctors writing prescriptions with very bad handwriting.
“If we do online prescriptions, this problem will be solved quite well. The important thing is to track the path of the prescription, the prescription's validity, the effectiveness of the prescription, the cost and finances of that prescription. Every day, millions of prescriptions are prescribed, and if they are prescribed manually, there is really no way to manage them,” said a delegate from the Hanoi delegation.
Sharing about this issue, pharmacist Pham Van Qui - Representative of Than Thien Pharmacy (in Hanoi) said that medicine is a special product, many types are only sold based on prescriptions given by doctors. Therefore, with e-commerce in the pharmaceutical industry, prescription drugs are very important.
According to Mr. Qui, the online prescription drug sales model is that customers take a photo of the prescription prescribed by the doctor and send it to the pharmacy, and the pharmacy delivers the product to the customer after having a prescription storage system. This model has many benefits.
Mr. Qui analyzed that with traditional prescription drugs, the price is only listed at the store and each store has a different price, making it difficult for customers to know and compare. Selling online will help prices become more public and transparent. Consumers can access the correct price as declared with the Ministry of Health.
In addition, when approaching e-commerce, pharmacies, especially small ones, increase their chances of competing and surviving by reaching more customers at lower costs.
