The packaging on medications increases the cost to the NHS, and generates even more profits for the pharmaceutical industry.
I have just spent the last
hour, filling my pill dispensing wallet. This is a task which I carry
out every two weeks, usually on alternate Sunday mornings. The reason
for using a pill dispenser is that I have a significant number of
various pills, which are usually taken in different combinations each
day. Consequently, the possibility of taking the wrong dosage or the
wrong pills, is avoided.
It never ceases to amaze
me, that at the end of this exercise, I always have at least half a
carrier bag full of discarded pill boxes, instruction leaflets and
numerous empty sheets of seven empty slots of tinfoil or thin plastic
or a combination of both, where the pill for that particular
medication was housed.
In many cases the tin foil
or plastic, requires a great amount of finger and thumb pressure to
eject the incumbent pill. This practice is not only irritating, but
it is also bloody dangerous. I, and perhaps many others, have at some
time during this process, had to wander off from the task in hand to
find an appropriate box of Elastoplast or some other wound dressing.
In my case, one of the medications which I regularly take is Warfarin
which has a tendency to make even small cuts bleed profusely.
Each time that I carry out
this task, I'm always conscious of the amount of waste packaging
being produced, all of which has to be gathered up and placed in a
carrier bag to be disposed of with the weekly rubbish collection. I
may not be alone in remembering when pills came in small brown, clear
plastic bottles, usually with a white screw cap, which required an
amount of fiddling to remove but usually produced a satisfactory
outcome. (It is rumoured that President Richard M Nixon was never
able to master this simple task with the result that many of the
white caps on his medication were covered in teeth marks witnessing
his usually unsuccessful attempts to open the bottle.)
Now all this additional
packaging, plastic, foil, cardboard and printed material must have an
associated cost. As pharmaceutical companies are not philanthropic
organisations, it must be assumed that this cost over and above that
of the little brown bottle with the white lid, together of course,
with the medication contained therein, is passed on to the government
and therefore the taxpayer (that’s us), as additional charges to
the NHS. It is little wonder that the cost charged by the
pharmaceutical companies, is a significant part of the NHS budget for
drugs and medications. It must be possible to find ways to reduce
this unnecessary packaging and at least contribute to a reduction in
the annual drug costs of the NHS. It may be argued by some, that
there is a health and safety issue in ensuring that pills and
medications are protected from possible contamination, but there is
little justification for the layers and layers of protective
wrappings which add nothing to the effectiveness of the medication
concerned but only reduce the cost of that medication.
There are compelling
arguments for saving on excess packaging in the pharmaceutical
industry, as there are compelling arguments for saving excess
packaging in the food industry which is demonstrably present on our
supermarket shelves and in our waste bins every day.
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