Future of Medicine Drug Expenses & Distribution
Ongoing research makes us to expect that the âtime to comeâ will be enormously excellent in the field of medicine. What we are currently seeing is the bright side of the day but darkness still lurks and prevails in the corners. Medical science is indeed growing leaps and bounds and is successful in finding cure for many diseases but the problem still remainsâis it acceptable and tolerable in future markets economically?â
No doubt, with improvisation in computerized technological era, medicine is gaining success at rates higher than ever expected. Polio has been eradicated to a great extent and many diseases have been well battled.How the lucidly noble goal of serving humanity is lost in the quagmire of economics is something which amazes me.
During my own personal survey most people ended up answering âFuture of Medicine as that of Manslayerâ. Their comments were revolving around the idea of âhigh pricesâ. If we analyze â right from the medical school to all the equipments that we use for medical treatment,they are very much expensive which lead to expensive health services to public.People, especially in underdeveloped countries expect the health care providers to be âthe holy menâ or some kind of magicians to treat them with their heartsrather than treating them in exchange for capital (money) and the African countries exemplify this statement of mine very well.
A great concern to the future of medicine would be the uneven distribution of drugs throughout the world. There are many parts ofthe world where almost all current drugs and vaccines are present and used(USA), yet many other regions are deprived of it. Hence the world is âunevenlycuredâ leaving some parts âmore diseasedâ than others.
The world is just like a body, if we wish that it stays healthy we have to cure all its regional parts simultaneously. Uneven treatment of diseases across the world for pathogenic microbiological agents is going to be a major burden in the future for medicine science . Travelling is very common around & and itis the fastest way to contract and spread diseases just like fire eats drywood! Well cured regions of the world are likely to re-contract those infectiousdiseases in spite of highly well maintained costly medical checkups beforetravelling to other zones. Thus diseases will continue to remain as problesm asthey start to re-appear with new resistance to drugs already being used, thus imposingmore significant challenges for the medicinal world.
Global warming and perpetual price hike are a few conditions which are currently playing vital roles in the increment of poverty. Yet, it continues to remain as debatable issue among the well developed countries especially USA and China. High prices lead to patients shying away from proper drugs and the death toll and mortality rates after a few years are expected to rise overall, thus basic objective of field of medicine would get unsuccessful and fail.
Pakistan is a state where we can currently see âthe failure of medicineâ to achieve its targets of supplying humanitarian help. According to UNâs estimate, more than half million chronic consumers of heroin are from Pakistan alone ,with many of them wishing to avoid the addiction somehow. But because of scarcity of methadone due to multiple reasons, people are left only on one treatment : âCold Turkeyâ. Curing addiction with help of âCold Turkeyâ is highly painful and frustrating. This way of treating patients was practised more than 50 years ago in the west.
This leads to a scenario where the majority of addicts prefer to stick to their addiction and die instead of a painful and slow treatment procedure.
Governments of different nations ought to take serious action to alleviate and solve these issues. Sensible and tolerable market prices for supplying health care education & services and even distribution of vaccinations can only promise fulfillment of the noble goals of medicines in proper fashion.
About the author: Shehroz Bashir is a medical student at SMC, Karachi,Pakistan. He can be reached a: Â [email protected]
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