Another healthcare crisis is in the offing, which may hit at least two million patients due to shortage of psychotropic drugs as pharmaceutical companies have not been allocated their quota, jeopardising the production of anti-anxiety and other drugs of daily use.
Mayo Hospital’s Professor of Psychiatry, Dr Riaz Bhatti, Sanofi Aventis Managing Director Tariq Wajid and Pharma Bureau Executive Director Dr Sadia Moazzam said in a joint press conference, here on Thursday, that delay in quota allocation of active narcotic ingredients, like Pseudoephedrine, Temazepam, Codeine, Buprenorphine, Ephedrine, Lorazepam, etc, will result in shortage of important regular use drugs such as anti-anxiety, anti-depression, psycholytic drugs, cough and cold syrups and epileptic drugs. Manufacturing of drugs, like sedatives/hypnotics for sleep disorders, anxiety disorders and depression; cough and cold preparations for cough and cold conditions; tranquilisers/antidepressants for depression and anxiety; narcotic analgesics for pain; etc, would be badly affected due to this delay and the concerned higher authorities had not paid any heed to the issue, they underscored.
Dr Riaz Bhatti said that the shortage of drugs made of natural and synthetic narcotic substances would surely result in crisis for the patient as these help in relieving depression and thereby improve the quality of life of the patient. He said that these are essential drugs for the patients as they control intestinal movement by dulling the centre in the brain, while they were also useful in cases of severe diarrhoea.
“Incidents of bone and joint disorders and cancers increase with age and aging patients require strong narcotic analgesics to improve their quality of life,” he said adding that if these drugs are not available then physicians would have to give the patients heavy doses of Non-steroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) which result in complications like hypertension, renal impairment and gastrointestinal perforations that could lead to death.
Dr Bhatti said that due to increased pressure from the environment (lawlessness, insecurity, economic issues, political instability, etc,) there was an increasing trend of depression in the community, leading to more use of narcotic anti-depressants. “The patients of anxiety and depression are required to take their narcotic medication timely because a lack of narcotic drugs may lead to such patients being uncontrolled and there is an increased likelihood of suicidal tendencies due to depression,” he added.
Tariq Wajid said that the pharmaceutical companies were perplexed as to how to procure the highly sensitive ingredients and start timely production in order to save the masses from any shortage and price hike of such daily use drugs, or just to sit and wait on the authority to wake up.
