The main purpose of the bill is to enhance the accessibility of medications in thinly populated regions that lack a primary healthcare center or a fixed pharmacy by empowering local hospitals to sell drugs. Only specialists with pharmaceutical education will be able to sell drugs. Doctors will not be impacted by the innovation. This was announced by one of the authors of the project, deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Health Protection Evgeny Nifantiev at the 21st Pharmacy Summit “New Pharmacy Reality in Russia and the CIS”.
“We all know that paramedic and midwife stations are allowed to sell medications. And this significantly increases the availability of medicines in remote, sparsely populated areas. But there is also something that was not foreseen at the time – rural hospitals. Currently, rural hospitals, although they are often larger than primary care clinics, do not have the right to dispense medications. And there are settlements where there is no first aid station or stationary pharmacy, but there is a rural hospital. The bill is aimed at increasing the availability of drugs in such settlements. Only specialists with pharmaceutical education will be able to dispense drugs in rural hospitals. There is no talk of doctors dispensing medications,” noted Evgeniy Nifantiev.