Patient's Right on Medication

There are fundamentally eight patient rights which are universally acknowledged by the global society.

1,     Right to Basic Needs
Healthcare is a basic need essential to live. It is your basic rights as an individual to have equitable access to medical care and medicine for health and wellbeing. Therefore, it forms the fundamental responsibilities of governments in every country to ensure that their people have equitable access to basic medicine needs.

2.   Right to Information
Patients have the right to be well-informed of the medicines they are taking. Healthcare professionals and the labels on medicine products must inform patients what kind of medicines they are taking, what are the side effects, how to take their medicines, how frequent to take it, and the stating precautionary health warnings.

3.    Right to Choice
The right to choose is essentially a consumer's right to choose a safe and healthy product of good quality over an unsafe or defective product. By doing so, patients can also influence healthy practices to be adopted by the market.  It is also important for patients to have a variety of healthy choices and in medicines, patients have every right to choose and request for generic versions of their medicines from healthcare providers.

4.   Right to Safety
Every patients has the right to safe medication. All medicines, whether its prescription drug or health supplements must not in anyway, bring harm to consumers. In Malaysia, the Pharmaceutical Services Division of the Ministry of Health strives to ensure that every single medicine sold in the market is safe for consumer to use.

5.   Right to Redress
The right to obtain redress is an important element given to protect patients interests. In Malaysia, redress mechanisms such as the Consumer Tribunal and legal courts exist for patientss to gain redress and seek compensation for damages incurred.

6.    Right to be heard
The right to be heard means that consumers should be allowed to voice their opinions and grievances at appropriate channels e.g. health authorities. If you have been cheated in the market place or deprived of the right quality of service, your complaint should be heard and given due attention by the authorities. Patients should also have a right to voice their opinion when rules and regulations concerning them are being drafted.

7.     Right to a Healthy and Sustainable Environment
The need for environmental conservation is seen as a necessary defense against deteriorating quality of life world-wide. As certain medicines are poisons, their disposal must be carefully and safely done so that it would not cause any significant harm to the surrounding living environment. Polluted environments lead to increased health costs and discomfort for consumers. Valuable resources are lost due to polluted environment and living conditions. Patients need to understand that only a safe environment can ensure the fulfillment of their consumer rights. 

8.     Right to Patient Education
Patient education empowers patients to exercise their rights and is perhaps the single most powerful tool for patient protection. Patient education is dynamic, participatory and is mostly acquired by hands-on and practical experience. Patient education can be in the form of past experiences of patients, information dissemination by government agencies and NGOs, classroom teaching by teachers and informal lessons by parents.