Most doctors’ handwriting can only be read by an experienced pharmacist who can know what medicine the physician wanted to prescribe based on the diagnosis and the symptoms. From the patient’s perspective, illegible handwriting can delay treatment and lead to unnecessary tests and inappropriate doses which, in turn, can result in discomfort and even death. It’s a serious problem - as the patient may suffer a worse condition or die after being given the wrong drug - but its harmful effects are under-reported in India. The days of doctors’ prescriptions being parallel lines of illegible scrawls punctuated by the odd circle to indicate dosage, may soon be a thing of the past. At times, the handwriting is so bad that we are forced to call up the doctor and check. Spelling mistakes are also common. Sometimes, doctors are not sure of the spelling and so just write it in a messy way.  A lot of drugs have similar spellings, but cater to different medical conditions. In such a case, a slight error on the part of the chemist to read the doctor’s handwriting can have serious consequences. There’s no excuse for poor handwriting and it should be decided that doctors should only write prescriptions only in capital letters. Thank God we have computers now and some doctors are prescribing the medication in print but it is difficult to give computer-generated prescriptions, especially in rural areas. But an effort should be made to have some standard rules for prescription writing,

Vinod Dixit, Ahmedabad, India

Great success

Heartiest congratulations to Nepal for having a healthy tiger population of 198 as revealed in the recent global tiger census data report! Several other tiger habitats particularly in SE Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos PDR) and China have been showing serious decline in the number of tigers almost becoming extinct in the wild. In spite of limited resources and funding, Nepal has demonstrated that dedicated and sincere efforts in wildlife conservation can make monumental changes against all obstacles. I congratulate the Government of Nepal for this grand success in tiger conservation and sincerely believe that the numbers will be pushed even higher in the not so distant future. Nepal has been a leading nation with great success in the conservation of the one-horned rhinoceros in Asia too.

Saikat Kumar Basu, Canada

No monitoring

In reference to the news story “Valley faces petrol shortage again” (THT, April 25, Page 1), the lack of monitoring from the authorities has provided a conducive environment for black-marketeers. Even though it has been months since the lifting of the unofficial blockade, there are still long lines outside petrol pumps. Cooking gas is still scarce and expensive. Not just monitoring is lacking but it seems that in many cases the concerned personnel are involved with the black-marketeers. Proper steps need to be initiated to relieve the suffering of the people who have already been victimised by the earthquake and the unofficial border blockade.

Aashish Mishra, Yangubahal, Lalitpur