Lucknow: Brijesh Pathak, the Deputy Chief Minister and Health Minister of Uttar Pradesh, urged doctors to write the names of medicines and prescribe tests on prescriptions for patients in Hindi or Devanagari.
Brajesh Pathak wrote an open letter to all the doctors in Uttar Pradesh; through his letter, he appealed to doctors to make Hindi and many other Indian Languages a normal part of the Indian healthcare system.
He said that as the state's health and medical education minister, he was appealing to the doctors to make Hindi a priority.
According to reports, he said, “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.”
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To mark Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay's birth anniversary on September 25, Pathak urged the promotion of Indian languages, suggesting that Hindi prescriptions could strengthen trust and improve communication between doctors and patients.
He said, “The Prime Minister communicates in Hindi during his visits abroad, and we should also promote Indian languages. Doctors prescribing in Hindi will be felicitated.”
According to reports by Hindustan Times, Doctors said that they appreciate the thought behind making Hindi and other Indian Languages a priority, but there are many practical obstacles in writing prescriptions in Hindi. The doctors also added that there are not many Hindi textbooks available for first-year MBBS.
In an interview with HT, Dr. NS Verma said that Pharmacology is essentially taught in English and medical students don’t even know the names of medicines in Hindi.
(Rh/ARC)