Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Why self medication?

May be there are several reasons for this rampant self medication in India
1. Lack of time for the patient [or his care taker} to attend the Clinic/Hospital
2. Availability of all most all medicines in the local pharmacy with out a prescription
3. To save the doctor's fee
4. Belief that comes from ignorance that there is no harm in self medication
5.Unavailability of doctor appointment or many a time in rural areas lack of doctors
All these contribute to the spiralling increase in market share for Over the Counter[OTC] medicines. In India it's share is almost 30 percent of the total Pharma market.Many of the drugs which are sold without prescription are not really approved as OTC product. Sale of non OTC products over the counter presents grave health hazard to the patient.What is the solution?

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