Medical officer says health law restriction risks lives

JAKARTA: The head of an auxiliary community healthcare center in Kutai Kartanegara, East Kalimantan, has filed for a judicial review of the 2009 Health Law on the grounds that it could deny patients lifesaving drugs in emergency situations.

Head of the healthcare center Misran said that the law threatened the constitutional right of nurses by forbidding them to administer certain drugs to patients.

The article, he said, prohibited nurses from prescribing patients with prescription-only drugs, such as antibiotics and analgesics, which the law classifies as G-class drugs.

Citing an example, he said nurses in remote regions would not be able to administer potentially lifesaving drugs to patients living far from doctors or major hospitals.

"Nurses are going through a legal dilemma and uncertainty," Misran said as quoted by Antara news agency Monday.

Misran was sentenced to three years in prison after unlicensed G-class drugs were found in his healthcare center. - JP