A legislative amendment is in the pipeline that will make it easier to obtain medicines, such as larger packages of painkillers, certain nasal sprays, antidiarrhoeal drugs or cough medicines. You don’t have to go to the pharmacy or drugstore, but you can also buy them in the supermarket or the gas station. The chemist or pharmacy assistant can be reached remotely via a computer screen. What do you think of that? Respond to our statement.
AGREE: I want personal advice on these medicines
Supermarkets, gas stations and hardware stores are now also allowed to sell medicines, but only very mild medicines, or small packages with low doses. With this amendment to the Medicines Act, they are allowed to sell almost all types and packaging of medicines that can be purchased without a prescription. People don’t realize how dangerous that can be, if those boxes are just at the supermarket. It is dangerous to give these medicines just like that.
The Central Office Drugstore Companies (CBD) and the Institute for Responsible Use of Medicine warn of the dangers of hospitalization due to an excess of these painkillers. The companies simply comply with the law by placing a chemist centrally behind a computer and placing a screen in all stores. At the moment there must still be a chemist or pharmacist (assistant) physically present everywhere. That’s a lot safer. They see much better for who it is and whether it is safe.
DON’T: Just give me those medicines, I don’t need an explanation
It is patronizing to sell medicines only in drugstores or pharmacies. These drugs are not so dangerous that a prescription is required, or that only the pharmacy can give them, it writes Medicines Evaluation Board† So let’s not make it too difficult.
It is so easy if you can go to several stores for a slightly larger box of ibuprofen. And by the way – I don’t notice much of that personal advice in drugstores, except that the seller asks whether I know the medicine and whether I have read the package leaflet. If I have questions, I can consult a druggist in those other stores via that screen. We now also speak to our doctor via a screen, why shouldn’t that be possible for buying relatively mild medicine? The law dates back to earlier times, when our current technical capabilities were not yet that advanced.
Statement: ‘I want personal advice on medicines from the drugstore’
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