More than half Indians are their own doctors

A Self less Campaign- Shun Self Medication

New Delhi, April 8: Ever increasing self medication trend despite many high sounding campaigns so far is worrisome. One more well meaning campaign is on the carpet but given the past failures, it hardly inspires.

 Lybrate, a mobile based web health portal, has announced an nth pan India campaign against this trend, post its survey on self medication. After interviewing 20,000 people in 10 cities including Delhi, it concluded that 52 percent of them resorted to self medication. Two reasons that surfaced were exorbitant consultancy fee and apprehension of being put through unnecessary tests again mounting the expenditure. Jagdish Prasad, Director General Health Services, launched its campaign on Tuesday (7 April).

Launching its too familiar sounding campaign- say no to self medication, Jagdish Prasad underlined the menace by giving examples and said, ‘See how unwittingly people endanger themselves by self medication. Many people take Ciprofloxacin for sore throat, which is a drug to treat tuberculosis. When symptoms subside, they stop taking it. Suppose the person had tuberculosis, he or she would have developed resistance to the drug.’ He further said, ‘Self medication in any form is detrimental to health. People indulge in self medication even for minor ailments namely fever, cold flu and infection, blithely unmindful of the health hazards it might accrue on them. Many a study has shown over the counter menace taking its heavy toll in terms developing resistance to antibiotic, liver damage, ulcer, Stroke, kidney damage et al.’

It has also emerged from the study that people self medicate based on suggestions given by peer circles and on line information. Despite health experts’ warning of increasing drug resistance, delayed diagnosis and allergic reactions due to this, there is no let up in the trend. Saurabh Arora, App’s CEO said, ‘the company will rope in over 2000 chemists in Delhi-NCR for this campaign.

In the meantime, a survey of private hospitals and clinics proves in no uncertain terms that consultancy and testing fee is a major push for self medication. The consultancy fees range between Rs 500 and Rs. 15, 00. Then a number of tests costing from Rs 1500 to Rs.3000, even for minor ailments fever, cold, cough and headache, make going to doctor a prohibitive proposition. In addition to resistance, prescription drugs such as antacids, cough syrups and pain relievers are making addicts of people.