Industry body calls for greater scrutiny of patients with multiple repeat prescriptions to tackle ‘growing problem’
    • esc@piefed.socialEnglish
      6·
      10 days ago

      Thanks! I don’t have any idea how big a ‘swimming pool’ is, but one cubic meter of water contains 1000 liters so 187 mliters is actually helpful in providing understanding how big it is.

      • SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zipEnglish
        54·
        10 days ago

        Right, most people have never seen a swimming pool, have no sense of its size, and can’t visualize it. But everybody instantly knows what 187,000 cubic meters looks like.

        • esc@piefed.socialEnglish
          81·
          10 days ago

          Swimming pools are different and often built according to external constraints like building size or plot size, while 187000 cubic meters look loke a line 187 kilometers long 1 meter high and 1 meter in width. For me personally that’s a |ot easier to visualize than a ‘swimming pool’ of water. Small lake can contain millions liters of water easily, same with pools.

          • SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zipEnglish
            11·
            10 days ago

            An Olympic swimming pool is 0.05km long, by 0.025km wide, by 0.002km deep, which, certainly, is not nearly as relatable to everyday experience for most people as 187km.

            • esc@piefed.socialEnglish
              3·
              10 days ago

              Glad that we agree on this! 👍🏽

              Anyway swimming pool and olimpic pool are different things and again it’s really hard to eyeball volumes of water while it’s really easy to approximate distance. Most people are at least somewhat aware of distance to the nearest bus stop, or town, or city. E.g. I know that distance to the next city is ~20 km.

              • SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zipEnglish
                11·
                10 days ago

                Uh oh—you’ve just related a quantity to a sensory experience, exactly what the National Pharmacy Association did in order to quickly relate a large quantity to most people’s numerical intuition without requiring them to do math. (Sure, it’s not precise, and 75 swimming pools is probably not enough to converge on the mean volume for swimming pools, but what are you calculating that’s relevant to the issue?)

                1 Distance to the Next City is not in the metric system!

  • A_norny_mousse@piefed.zipEnglish
    11·
    10 days ago

    I don’t like the implication that patients are somehow greedy.

    This is a problem of packaging mostly, meaning you can’t have just three pills of something, it’s a blister pack of 10 at least. Maybe also of doctors overprescribing.

    I don’t like the measure of swimming pools either. Is it with packaging or without? Anyhow, how much is a swimming pool? Not standardised afaik. They should’ve said how many individual pills or doses, at the very least. Slightly more precise.

  • kubica@fedia.io
    10·
    10 days ago

    What do they call wasted medicine? Because many times a medicine that it is going to be used just a couple of times comes in a huge package like 10 times the size needed.

    • A_norny_mousse@piefed.zipEnglish
      2·
      10 days ago

      Yep.

      Also, the tiniest pills I take are also the most expensive.

      Also, everybody knows that pills the exact same size can contain 400 or 800mg ibuprofen or some such.

      Also, does it say with packaging or without.

  • Cherry@piefed.socialEnglish
    6·
    10 days ago

    If it’s prescription then usually it’s a prescribed course or to to treat a condition.

    The thing is mixed messages don’t help. Docs are often saying try something else before meds. So then if you get meds and it solves the problem then people stop. So wasted meds exist.

    Secondly you tend to get a repeat prescription it’s often to manage or anticipate, say for example a migraine. If then this does not occur then it’s wasted meds.

    Question is, if you need it later and it is not there and the doc L/surgery makes it hard to get hold of the med again is it easier option is to have a repeat prescription.

    And the uk does not usually measure in swimming pools, football fields or Dodge rams. So whoever wrote this is clearly trying to get a reaction.

  • Maeve@kbin.earth
    3·
    10 days ago

    This is a huge issue in the United States, as well. And then there are people who need medicine and can’t afford it.