SINGAPORE — To help Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) physicians communicate better with their patients and other healthcare professionals, two changes have been proposed: Standardising the names of herbs and medication by getting physicians to use simplified Mandarin or hanyu pinyin, and having proper prescription labels with directions for use and use-by dates.

Touted as the world’s first, the non-mandatory standards were introduced by Spring Singapore and the Singapore Manufacturing Federation-Standards Development Organisation (SMF-SDO).
 
“Over the years, Chinese medicine has acquired multiple names across languages. As the standardisation of names used across these languages may not be possible, it is essential to have a standard for common Chinese medicine ... to support accurate dispensing of medication as well as systematic documentation on prescription labels,” said the SMF-SDO in a press release.

As of last year, there were over 2,800 registered practitioners here.

Speaking to the media after the unveiling of the standards on Sunday (June 5), Dr Swee Yong Peng, the TCM working group’s convenor, said the improvements will help TCM practitioners’ communication with patients and other healthcare experts, boosting its credibility. Patients’ safety can also be better protected, he added.

For instance, the working group proposed that medication labels should bear the names of the clinic and practitioner; the medication’s issue and expiry dates; and precautions for use.

“If a patient eats the medicine and suffers negative side effects, he’ll know the real reason — whether it was one or two ingredients in the medicine or whether it was because he took expired medicine. Very often, we pegged the reason down to eastern medicine. That’s too broad,” said Dr Swee in Mandarin.

On the take-up rate, Dr Swee, who is also vice-chairman of the Singapore Chinese Physicians’ Association, acknowledged that established practitioners “may not be so bothered, especially if they have a lot of patients”.

“But we hope that as things move on, and everyone does that, there may be pressure among peers. If a patient sees a certain doctor, he may start actually start questioning why your (medication) doesn’t have an expiry date?” he added.

TCM practitioner Lim Yeow Wah, who has over two decades of experience, felt that the standards were best used as a reference point.

He said: “For Western medicine, you just have a label with instructions on how to use. How do you write it for Chinese medication? The medicine might have 10 ingredients. How will there be enough space to write?”