Drug resistance to antibiotics in Britain
by Victor Cherubim
( August 19, 2015, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Soon there will be new rules for prescription of antibiotics for patients suffering ordinary colds, cough and infections in Britain. The Health Watchdog wants the General Medical Council, to take some action. Antibiotics that General Medical Practitioners (G.P’s) have prescribed for these ailments are making patients becoming immune to antibiotics, fuelling a rise in drug resistance bugs. How much of a risk, only time will tell?
As 10 million of the 41.6 million antibiotic prescriptions dished out by GP’s in a year we are told are unnecessary, pressure is mounting on GP surgeries to resist pestering patients demanding antibiotics. Some 9 out of 10 GP’s feel under pressure to prescribe them to satisfy their patients. According to medical research some 97 percent of patients who now ask for antibiotics treatment are prescribed them.
Who needs a Doctor to find out what’s wrong with a patient?
The way illness is diagnosed we know is changing. Monitoring health with smart phones, apps or wearable devices, is the order of the day. Instead of merely tracking lifestyle indicators, such as sleep quality, diet and physical activity, these so called devices will, we are informed, deliver medical advice and diagnosis. We are at the threshold of a new era in medicine, made possible by advances in physical intelligence and wireless sensing. Medical information data is “enabled” to be stored and shared with not only the medical profession but also life insurance companies and other interested parties. Could they do more harm than good?
The pharmaceutical business
On the other side of the coin, we hear of the progress in pharmaceutical laboratories which are the cutting edge of medical research. Not a day passes that we hear of drug discovery. Simultaneously, the cost of this culture makes it necessary for Pharmaceutical Companies to send out high powered Sales Rep’s to literally “hard sell” their drugs on research hungry GP’s to prescribe their brand of antibiotics to patients at surgeries. Hardly do we hear of the visits to Doctor’s surgeries by these “nice men” who hand out samples of their antibiotics for GP’s “to try out on patients” after clinical trials.
The fast drugs for fast cure?
For far too long – over nearly six odd years – we have lived off antibiotics. It has become ingrained in medicine as a fast cure. Who cares about medical ethics if these antibiotics can be used for immunisation? However, medical research maintains it is only in the past 15 years that over prescription of antibiotics has become a “bit of a problem”.
The general public has always wanted fast cure and GP’s have found it easy to satisfy their patients. Now with drug resistance both the patients and GP’s are having second thoughts. But Doctors are excusing themselves for over prescription by admitting that it takes time for their messages to their patients to penetrate.
Cost of Antibiotics to NHS
It is always when cost comes into the frame that ethics is adhered to? The cost of antibiotic prescriptions has now reached £192 million to the National Health Service.
The Conservative Government of David Cameron is all the while on the look out to cut costs. Whether it is political correctness or otherwise it is maintained that where and when necessary antibiotics have to be prescribed to needy patients. But as some infections can no longer be effectively treated by antibiotics, it is a window of opportunity for the cost cutters.
Treatment of disease
We are fortunate in Sri Lanka to have alternative medicine in Ayurvedic medicine and herbal treatments for the treatment of common disease, beside the use of Western medicine, when and where necessary.
Disease and the spread of disease is on the increase. Overuse of any drug, antibiotics or other is not to be recommended because of the hidden side effects of all “specialist drugs.” We know that pain killers perform a useful service for chronic illness. But in the extreme case of a GP prescribing say “Amitripolene” for certain patients with chronic illness, the side effects of this drug is severe hallucination. Similarly, pain killers perform a limited service, but they can be harmful to life if overused, and drug dependent, similar to antibiotics.
Immediate relief, immediate satisfaction
We live in a world conditioned to immediate relief and/or immediate satisfaction. In the world of Ayurvedic medicine, there is said to be no immediate cure. This is because the treatment of disease takes time and herbal remedies supplement and work with the human body’s own defence mechanism to eradicate the ailment. Who says this is not ethical medicine?
We need society’s change in attitudes towards the use of, or rather overuse not only of antibiotics but of any medicine. Meanwhile, we in Sri Lanka could do well to take a lesson regarding the drug resistance of all antibiotics.
