LUCKNOW Doctors across Uttar Pradesh may soon need to brush up their Hindi vocabulary as UP deputy chief minister and health minister Brajesh Pathak has urged them to write the names of medicines and tests prescribed to patients in Hindi or Devanagari script, saying this could make healthcare information easier for patients to understand.
“The Prime Minister communicates in Hindi during his visits abroad and we should also promote Indian languages. Pathak appealed to promote the use of Hindi and Indian languages in the medical sector to make the healthcare system more accessible and understandable for patients. “Few books are available in Hindi for MBBS first year. They are either translated or written for the sake, hence names of organs or medicines are in English amid Hindi sentences. Pharmacology, in particular, is taught in English.
In his appeal to the medical community, Pathak said he was making the request not only as the deputy chief minister and health minister but also as a Hindi-loving Indian. He said at a personal level, he would give preference to medicines whose names were written in Hindi. “As the state’s medical and medical education minister, I would also appeal, as a nationalist Indian, to doctors to write the names of medicines and tests in Hindi on prescriptions for the ease of patients,” he stated in an open letter to doctors on Friday, urging them to make Hindi and Indian languages a more regular part of medical communication. Doctors prescribing in Hindi will be felicitated,” he said. Doctors, while welcoming efforts to promote the use of Hindi, said implementing this would bring practical difficulties. Doctors said there were practical issues in writing prescriptions in Hindi. Medical students do not even know proper Hindi names of medicines,” said Dr NS Verma, former head physiology at King George’s Medical University, Lucknow. “National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority had suggested printing names of medicines in Hindi and English (both), and many companies followed, giving an option to read the names of medicines in two languages,” said Suresh Gupta, general secretary, Chemists and Druggists Federation, UP.
Reacting to the minister’s appeal, UP Congress president Ajai Rai said: “The UP health department needs more medicines and doctors who may write prescriptions in a language they prefer and find suitable.”
