Last Tuesday, veterinarians exploded against the new government medication standard and decided to strike and pray their clinics for at least an hour to complain about Presvet’s implementation, “the drop that has filled the glass.”
Everything is born by Royal Decree 666/23 of July 18 that regulates the distribution, prescription, dispensation and use of veterinary medications. It is not of recent approval, it was published in the BOE in July 2023 and entered into force the day after its publication. However, it is of a certain current, because in its final provision fifth specified that the provisions of article 39.1 Regarding the communication of the veterinary prescription data of antimicrobial prescriptions for pets, it would be applicable from the 2 of January 2025. And on January 2, 2025 he arrived … and began the battle of veterinarians.
Presvet is a platform that is used to manage veterinary prescriptions, but its hurried implementation and complexity have generated strong criticism among professionals in the sector. His arrival was received with indignation due to the alleged excessive bureaucratic burden and sanctions considered disproportionate. In addition, its impact has not been limited to veterinarians, but has also affected those responsible for animals, local administration, animal protection entities and animals themselves, whose attention and sanitary routine have been altered in some cases .
All this stir has caused, as we mentioned earlier, that the veterinary centers protested on Tuesday before these measures. ABC has spoken with Alfredo Fernández Álvarez, doctor of veterinary medicine specialist in medicine and pet surgery and director of Institutional Relations IVC Evidensesia Spain to explain what this tool consists of and the reason because it has the veterinarians of revolt pets since To some extent this rule equals a dog or cat with a cow or other species of a livestock exploitation.
Are our legislators really concerned about well -being, health, dignity and rights of pets? Is our legislation on the prescription of veterinary medications at the height of what a diverse and plural society can demand like ours in the field of pets? Have you considered veterinary professionals, specifically to company animals, for the development of the law in order to have a regulatory framework that really responds to the needs of our society? Does this law benefit our “patients” already responsible?
The mandatory communication of antimicrobial prescriptions in the field of pets, began to be applied on January 2, 2025. Within a maximum period of 15 days, the doctors have the obligation to communicate the prescribed antibiotic treatments through the Issuance of the mandatory veterinary recipes, such as those administered and assigned in our professional practice in the central computer control system of veterinary prescriptions of antibiotics on a computer platform known as Presvet, supervised by the Ministry of Agriculture.
The antibiotic reduction plan is based on a strategy defined by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food as “from the farm to the table” in order to implement a fair, healthy and respectful food system, according to the environment, according to which, among other things, is advocated by the reduction of antimicrobial sales by 50 % as a objective to be achieved in 2030. Without a doubt, a slogan nothing lucky in its transposition to the sector of pets since the links that the links that the links that the links that the links that the links that the links that the links that the links that the links that the links that the links that the links that the links that They maintain people with these animals are not based on their consumption as food but on elements of emotional and affective nature. Of course, a company animal will never go to the human consumption chain.
Ineffective norm
During these first weeks of application of the standard we have been able to verify its inefficiency from the point of view of the quality of care and the consequent mood impact that it is having among all the professionals specialized in medicine and animal animal surgery. The system does not contemplate the diversity of animal species that we attend, among which dogs, cats, rodents, rabbits, birds, fish or, among others, reptiles stand out.
Nor does it consider essential aspects from the therapeutic point of view such as the conditions of their habitats, the direct relationships that they maintain with people, specificities in the use and administration of medicines according to species, their tolerance, their availability, their safety or , among some of the most important elements, the conditions that allow the fulfillment of their therapeutic regimes aspects all of them essential to reduce antimicrobial resistances in this sector.
Limitations
The result is that veterinary professionals are in their day to day with important limitations and inconveniences to offer quality and specialized services for their “patients”, a circumstance whose first consequence in a decrease in the health and well -being of animals and, consecutively, of the people who live with them.
Additionally, veterinary costs increase demanding a series of analytical tests on which the optional decisions have to be supported and complicates the fulfillment of the dosological regimes of the animals by notably hindering the access of those responsible for those responsible for the necessary medications for their attention.
This is so, because our current legal framework, I insist, does not contemplate the uniqueness of these animal species recognized as a company and imposes a series of requirements for the mandatory compliance with veterinarians for the prescription of medicines that hinder their access and therefore the healing of their diseases.
RD 666/2023 establishes that veterinary professionals to attend a disease of these species initially should be directed to exclusively veterinary medicines despite the fact that there is an important limitation in the availability of these medications, at least if we compare it with that exist in the pharmacy offices. This is what is known as “ordinary prescription.”
Therapeutic vacuum
This Royal Decree, only allows, if there is a therapeutic vacuum, that is, if veterinary medications are not available, to do what is called “exceptional prescription.” Within this type of prescription, the professional must follow a structured itinerary in a series of levels. The first level allows the professional search disease and species. In other words, although we know that there are more efficient active ingredients in our pharmacy offices, we should follow all these steps prior to specifically treating a medical disease, even, even if we are aware that these therapies are more inadequate.
Only if there were no medications at these levels could be passed to the next step of the prescription of medicines represented by the drugs composed of active ingredients to people and, finally, if we did not find in these groups an effective therapy could pass to the last level Represented drugs performed specifically for each “patient” known as master formulas, official prepared and highways.
In addition, our legal framework, to limit the so -called as exceptional prescriptions of medicines in the field of companion animals attribute the direct and personal responsibility of any complication derived in the use of these medications to the professional itself that has prescribed them. To understand it is as if a doctor prescribed an anti -inflammatory, for example, ibuprofen, and after taking it for a couple of days we suffered diarrhea, a side effect of this drug, and the doctor had to personally assume all the consequences of that secondary effect medication about your patient.
In the particular case of the prescription of antibiotics, in addition to the conditions of the “cascade prescriptions” that govern in a general way for all medicines, a new limitation is imposed on the professional autonomy of the doctors represented by a categorization of the different types of antibiotics in four groups called such as A, B, C and D.
Veterinary professionals can only access group D as the first line of attention to antimicrobials, having to justify any optional decision and leaving in the background what is the most appropriate therapy for each specific and particular patient. From this moment on, the use of any antibiotics from the rest of the groups must be justified by the lack of effective Your sensitivity.
The current legal framework, in the sector of specialists in Medicine and Surgery of Companies, conditions professional prescriptions limiting and restricting the autonomy of veterinarians to address the different health problems despite being the only ones qualified to address this type of ailments and have a remarkable scientific training and a model of continued update of our knowledge. Consequence of this, veterinary costs that have to endure those responsible for animal care are recorded by imposing a series of diagnostic and analytical requirements to justify the prescription of medications, already significant costs when taxed with a tax burden of 21%, almost Fourth part of the general costs, that those responsible for animals have to face every time they try to improve the well -being and health of these loved ones that are part of their family environments and that also allow the extension of diseases to be avoided To other animals and people.
The Royal Decree is completed with a sanctioning regime for veterinary professionals in which there are sanctions that threaten professionals with millionaire fines for their breach of the standard that can exceed 1,000,000.00 of euros with a End of deterrence and obvious collection.
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