Nurses authorised to supply non-prescription drugs without seeking doctor's permission
Wednesday, October 28, 2015 @ 10:28 AM
A HEALTHCARE law amendment means nurses are now allowed to supply and administer medication that does not require a prescription, creating greater legal security for staff and increased comfort for patients.
'Permitted to prescribe where a prescription is not needed' appears a contradiction in terms at first, but a number of Spanish nurses have clarified what the new law means for them, and for those they treat.
An in-patient, or a patient waiting to be attended to in A&E who has a headache or other type of pain would normally have to wait until a doctor could be found to give permission and instruct the nurse what type of medication to administer or, if it was overnight and all doctors were asleep – woken only in the event of emergencies – the patient would have to suffer the pain until morning.
This could even go on for at least 12 hours, since doctors on their rounds may not reach the patient until mid-morning, or possibly not even then if the patient is not on his or her list to examine that day.
Likewise, ointment or even bandages for a wound, or any other type of what would typically be over-the-counter drugs could not be given to a patient in hospital unless a doctor was able to authorise it.
Despite this, nurses study the same number of university credits in pharmacology as doctors during their degree and some nurses even have higher levels of academic qualifications in their field than doctors – although it takes much less time to qualify as a nurse, many nurses go on to take master's degrees or even PhDs to specialise further, whilst many GPs or hospital consultants do not have a PhD, meaning in technical terms, although they are a 'doctor' by profession, they are not a 'doctor' by title.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com