Doctors impugn government’s decision to ration Viagra

The decision of the British government to restrict the availability of Viagra tablets at the NHS have seen doctors coming out to impugn the motive behind the act.

General practitioners have issued a statement saying they have been placed in an impossible situation by the government's rules on Viagra.

The decision, which becomes effective on the 1st of July, on the one hand, stipulates that GPs are expected to follow the provisional guidelines which says Viagra tablets should not be prescribed other than in exceptional circumstances.

However, the GPs, under their terms of service, are expected to give prescription for any licensed medicine whenever it is clinically necessary.

According to the government's full guidance, Viagra is placed on the so-called Schedule 11 – a scheduled list of medicines that are restricted on the NHS.

Although the placement increases the number of eligible patients for Viagra tablets from 15% to 17% of the men suffering from erectile dysfunction in the UK, Pfizer’s argument is that the guidance is to restrictive.

BMA’s position has been sound all along
Chairman of the British Medical Association's GPs committee, Dr John Chisholm, said, "After the GPs committee took its own legal advice months ago, we have advised all family doctors to give prescription of Viagra tablets as clinically necessary."

‘The BMA would maintain this position until 1 July,’ Chisholm said.

According to a spokeswoman for the Impotence Association: "The proposals of the government still remain restrictive and discriminatory with only 17% of impotent sufferers eligible to get treatment on the NHS."

“Every British suffering from ED need access to more Viagra on the NHS,” doctors have said.
Accessibility of Viagra tablets on the NHS to more impotent men, doctors argued, will go a long way in slowing down the trade in fake copies of the little blue pills.

The British Medical Association went on to seize the opportunity to call on the Government to revisit its decision on who would be eligible for drugs to treat erectile dysfunction.

“The BMA had always been against the rather biased manner in which Viagra is available to some patients, while others cannot get the drug,’ the chairman Dr Hamish Meldrum said.

The BMA's stand is clear: Doctors should be allowed to prescribe Viagra and the other ED medicines to all patients who have a demonstrable clinical need.

‘There is currently an "awful half-way house" in which some men can get treatment while others cannot,’ Dr Meldrum said.

The implication of this is that while some men are forced to go private, others simply turn to the internet to buy Viagra pills which could be either fake or harmful.

"We are not unaware that a lot of internet sites offer Viagra tablets at very low price, considerably lower than what you get at the chemist," Meldum said.

"The problem with this is that you might not be actually getting the real Viagra tablets or that may be getting an inert substance, which could be dangerous.

Another problem is that patients are not made to undergo a thorough consultation to see if Viagra could interfere with other medicines they are taking.

‘This is the job of the Government and not that of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) to look at the issue,’ Meldum continued.

"The availability of Viagra tablets on the NHS is really almost a political decision, as no one is arguing about whether Viagra or the other treatments for erectile dysfunction are effective or not."

Dr Meldrum added, "I think where the government has decided to draw the line at the moment is not very good."