Introduction
Pain is the simplest and the most common form of complication that medical practitioners treat. The past has isolated the simple symptoms of pain, considering it as a disease as any other. Therefore, the law has denied people the freedom to purchase pain and flu medication over the counter for a long time. However, this was reversed recently with the bill’s introduction allowing over-the-counter pain medication purchases.
This is a sign that people have the discretion to determine the form of pain they feel, share it with the pharmacists, and thus get help immediately. Debate remains over the legitimacy of the regulation adopted. Some think this could not have happened, while others think the rule is right and should be implemented in the letter. Pain and its medication are relevant to the nursing profession in various ways. The primary reason the pain aspect is significant in the nursing and medical professions is that they are the most uncomplicated disease identity. As such, they create a way for deeper determination of significant diseases. Also, pain creates discomfort in the patient; thus, the medical profession must determine the most appropriate mechanism to treat it for good (Foley et al., 2015). Pain takes various forms and symptoms. Depending on the case under consideration, pain could manifest itself through discomfort, tightness, soreness, and stiffness. On the other hand, pain can be determined by an injury or a feeling of shooting, aching, or even burning. This discussion, however, supports the adoption of the legislation allowing over-the-counter medication purchases.
First, the regulation allows people to seek medical attention occasionally and at close intervals. Before the adoption of the law, many people tended to ignore the small forms of pain that arose in their bodies. This amounted to the ignorance that the strains could indicate other more acute diseases. As a result, more people contracted significant diseases unknowingly due to the limitation of over-the-counter medication. With the introduction of the regulation, more people readily access medical attention over the counter and seek deeper insight into their conditions. The pharmacists offered good guidance on the conditions of the patients. Therefore, more people find it possible to prevent the exaggeration of acute disease unknowingly. The regulation enables the elimination of ignorance on the patients’ side. An early determination of the cause of pain enables the patients to seek higher levels of medical attention and thus gain better help. As a result, medical costs are minimized, and the rate of deaths is curbed as well.
Allowing patients to access over-the-counter medical services works well in reducing the congestion in the bigger medical facilities. In the past, many people would visit big hospitals for minor causes of pain. As a result, many facilities were forced to accommodate more people than the facilities and the resources allowed. The result is that the quality of the services offered to the patients deteriorated and many of them went home dissatisfied (Henkemans 2016). Too much congestion in the health facilities caused the healthcare providers to concentrate more on acute cases. As a result, the pain cases are frustrated and end up without any form of help. The introduction of the regulation allows as many people affected by minor instances of pain to consult the pharmacists at the pharmacy. In this regard, all the patients accessing the services over the counter are treated accordingly and thus satisfied.
Each pharmacy handles a small number of patients from time to time. Thus, the attendant has the entire time to determine the cause of the patient’s pain. The over-the-counter allows pharmacists to have more time and exchange more information. This improves the quality level of services and thus benefits the patient more. This is incomparable to the past situation. Before the regulation came into force, patients could flock to medical facilities. Thus, the medical practitioners were too tired to attend to the different cases. Also, the limited resources in the healthcare facilities limited the ability of the healthcare facilities to provide the highest level of service quality.
The government benefits from the introduction of the regulation. In the past, the government was required to cater to most of the costs incurred by the patients walking in and out of the hospitals. However, this has changed with the new regulation in place. The regulation acts as a form of privatization of the health sector. For this reason, the pharmacies’ owners meet the costs, thus saving the government lots of costs. The government, therefore, has enough resources to concentrate on its facilities, thus improving the quality of services in healthcare facilities.
The introduction of the regulation created a form of competition between government facilities and private pharmacies. In this case, the pharmacists are in business and thus have to do everything within their ability to attract as many customers as possible. Therefore, many private health facilities offer high-quality and efficient services to customers. As competition grows, so does the quality of medical services offered (Parry et al., 2015). This benefits the patients as they can access the highest quality of services compared to the pre-regulation period.
Conclusion
The introduction of the regulation allowing over-the-counter pain and flu medication has improved the health sector. Various aspects have improved from the previous form of regulations. More people can access medical attention from time to time due to the accessibility of the pharmacies around them. Also, the number of pain cases is small; thus, patients find it hard to take their time to the major hospitals. However, introducing the regulation eliminates the previously rampant ignorance of the patients of their conditions. The quality of the healthcare sector improved with the new regulation. Pharmacists are in business and thus compete among themselves. The quality of services offered rises continuously to the benefit of the patients. The government got the opportunity to concentrate on the main health conditions. The congestion in such facilities is reduced. As a result, the quality of services increased, as did the speed of serving the customers.
As a recommendation, the private sector and the public health sectors ought to work in collaboration. Despite being in business, there is a need for the private sector to create a bigger concern for the health of the patients. Thus, Pharmacists should assist the patients to determine the cause of their pains to prevent further ignorance of the possible acute disease. Deeper research is required for medical practitioners. Such a study allows practitioners to determine the various forms of pain and the possible consequences. Such would make the services offered to the customers over the counter more meaningful and reduce the risks. However, consistent pains ought to be addressed at higher levels of treatment and not just over the counter. Local discretion is highly encouraged in such a case.
References
Foley, M., Harris, R., Rich, E., Rapca, A., Bergin, M., Norman, I., & Van Hout, M. C. (2015). The availability of over-the-counter codeine medicines across the European Union. public health, 129(11), 1465-1470.
Henkemans, A. F. S. (2016). Argumentative patterns in over-the-counter medicine advertisements. Argumentation, 30(1), 81-95.
Parry, C. D., Deluca, P., Cooper, R., & Van Hout, M. C. (2015). Do we have sufficient information to optimally inform regulatory or other policy decisions about medications containing codeine?. Addiction, 110(10), 1690-1691.
