BEIRUT: A Health Ministry plan to introduce a standardized prescription form is off to a slow start with no signs of the form in pharmacies across Beirut.

Pharmacists said they have not had customers bring in the new form to fill prescriptions despite the fact that it was supposed to become mandatory within two months. Some pharmacists even said they had been altogether unaware that the document existed.

“The Order of Pharmacies told them they would distribute ... and start with the form, but it hasn’t happened yet,” said a pharmacist at Plaza Pharmacy in Hamra.

Health Minister Ali Hasan Khalil and the heads of the Order of Pharmacists and Physicians launched the standardized form in December. The document was offered for the first time in January and is supposed to become mandatory for all pharmacies and doctors by the first of April.

The new form is intended to rein in the nation’s largely unregulated and sometimes dangerous prescription drug industry by creating a paper trail and a single set of prescription options.

The country’s prescription drug industry suffers from minimal enforcement of the state’s laws. That lax enforcement makes it easy for pharmacies to sell drugs or drug alternatives outside the law.

Drug officials have warned that black market drugs make up a sizable portion of the country’s drug industry and are putting patients’ lives at risk. In recent years, several people have reported significant health issues resulting from the use of unregulated counterfeit drugs.

The problems are widely acknowledged in the industry and the new form is seen as a framework for more consistency and better policing in the sector.

Under the new system, every doctor’s prescription pad is marked with an individual serial number.

A set of options is provided for the doctor to choose how the prescription is filled, such as choosing to allow substitution by a generic drug.

When a prescription is written, copies are issued to the doctor, patient and pharmacist to create an easy to follow paper trail so health officials can root out bad prescribing practices.

But if the adoption rate and awareness of the standardized form in the first month is any indication, it seems there is a long way to go to even have basic control over the industry.

The head of the Order of Pharmacists, Ziad Nassour, said the form was being distributed and his organization had made efforts to raise pharmacies’ awareness of the documents.

Nassour said pharmacists also need to be in communication and look for recent updates from the Health Ministry and the order. “If a pharmacist does not receive the sample they have an obligation to check the website,” he added.

“They are going to become mandatory on the first of April, they can use it starting now,” he said. “Now all pharmacies in Lebanon should know. It’s on the website of the order.”