Self-medication is like playing Russian roulette
SUKKUR: Self-medication has led to many health issues in Pakistan which are otherwise normally treatable by medical consultants. It has more to do with ignorance than anything else. That is the reason why people find it easier to purchase medicine from the pharmacy on their own than consult a specialist, little knowing that for the same medical condition there are dozens of medicines, each dealing with particular causes and conditions.
There is a pharmaceutical mafia behind it. Any medicine, from methadone to stimulants, can be purchased from a range of different pharmacies in Pakistan without needing specialists’ prescription. This cannot be done without the silent backing of the provinces’ health departments.
There are also some misconceptions about visiting doctors as well. Many patients fear that going to doctors is a waste of time and a doctor might require them to undergo tedious and expensive tests for the ailments which they think is minor enough to be treated with self-medication.
Doctors are also responsible for encouraging people to self-medicate rather than visit their clinics, but this is rarely the case. It has been observed in Pakistani hospitals and clinics that physicians, unlike in the western countries where the same profession holders give patients enough time to speak without interruption, hardly listen to the patients. Or else, they just pretend to listen and prescribe the medicine that they have already decided to recommend. The reason is that the medicos are amply paid in cash and kind by pharmaceutical companies to prescribe certain medications to ailing patients. The pharmaceutical companies and healthcare sector also have a huge role to play. Drugs, medication and treatment have become so expensive – because of artificially controlling the demand and supply mechanism or just ramping up the prices – that a majority of people prefer to self-medicate using cheap general medicines than to go to specialists who charge a large sum of money.
Self-medication is like playing Russian roulette. Besides educating people on the fatally harmful effects of self-medication, there is a need to provide better overall healthcare.
Riaz Mahar
Published in The Express Tribune, January 31st, 2020.
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