PRESCRIPTIONS IN METRIC

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30316, 17 December 1963, Page 21

PRESCRIPTIONS IN METRIC

Change-Over Under Way

More than half the pharmacists in Canterbury are now dispensing by the metric system, the president of tho Canterbury division of the Chemists’ Service Guild of New Zealand (Mr T. E. D. Brain) said yesterday. The system was to have been brought in on November 1, but at that time many of the chemists did not have the necessary equipment and the Health Department waived its instruction for the change until the chemists were ready. Mr Brain said his division had now advised its members to change to the metric system if they had enough equipment, and many had done so. Metric bottles were still in short supply, but most other items were now becoming more readily available.

An exception was in the Ashburton area, where metric equipment was short and, as far as he knew, all the chem. ists were still using the apothecary system.

Most doctors seemed to have switched to prescribing in the metric sysetm, Mr Brain added, and where the chemist, too, had made the change the whole process was going smoothly. “It will be a very much simpler system, all in all, when we’ve had time to get used to it,” he said.