Indian court orders doctors to fix handwriting

An Indian court has mandated that doctors must write prescriptions clearly in capital letters, declaring that "legible medical prescription is a fundamental right" that can mean the difference between life and death.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court issued the order after Justice Jasgurpreet Singh Puri encountered an incomprehensible medico-legal report during a bail hearing for an unrelated case. The judge noted that not even a single word or letter was legible in the government doctor's handwriting.

The court has given a two-year timeline for implementing digitized prescriptions across the medical system and requested that handwriting lessons be included in medical school curricula until the transition is complete.

Dr Dilip Bhanushali, president of the Indian Medical Association, acknowledged the challenge, noting that while urban doctors have moved to digital prescriptions, rural practitioners face difficulties. He explained that heavy patient loads in overcrowded government hospitals contribute to poor penmanship.

This isn't the first judicial intervention on the matter - high courts in Odisha and Allahabad have previously criticized doctors' illegible handwriting. A 1999 Institute of Medicine report estimated medical errors caused 44,000 preventable deaths annually in the US, with 7,000 attributable to poor handwriting.

Despite a 2016 order from India's Medical Council requiring physicians to write prescriptions legibly in capital letters, pharmacists report that illegible handwritten prescriptions remain common, particularly in rural areas.