Drug abuse is prevalent among the people in the rural and tribal areas of the erstwhile Adilabad district as rural medical practitioners (RMPs) prescribe high doses, most of which are painkillers and steroids that give temporary relief.
But, steroids badly affect the functioning of the body and patients become addicted to such drugs over a period of time.
Medicines like Diclofenac and Decadron (tablet and injection), Betnesol and Prednisone keep the patients in a euphoric state and give immediate relief to the patients, but it also fuels the catabolism, resulting in the tissue breakdown by destructing the metabolism, in the body.
Patients easily get these drugs from the medical stores without any valid prescription by the qualified doctors.
About its side-effects, a doctor working at a government hospital in Utnoor said: the “patients will suffer from obesity, osteoporosis, diabetes, hypertension and chronic kidney diseases and health problems related to heart”.
He said government authority should take steps to control the drug abuse and create awareness among the people as well as RMP’s about the ill effects of steroids and painkillers, and added over a period of time the patients would become habitual for these medicines.
The ill the effects of above medicines will come to light only when the patients go to higher medical centers and through examination.
There is a strong feeling among the rural and tribals people that they get immediate relief, if they go to a local RMP when they fell sick without knowing about the medicines the latter prescribe and their ill effects.
It is a general practice that the RMPs would send the patients suffering from side effects to the doctors who run big Nursing homes and hospitals in the towns with whom they had a close network and regularly get commissions for sending patients.
The Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA), Utnoor officials, has identified more than 3,000 RMPs working in 13 mandals in the old Adilabad district and found that they were giving the wrong diagnosis to the patients, especially tribals, thereby posing a threat to their life.
A few months ago, ITDA officials had closed an RMPs clinic in Utnoor for causing the death of a tribal by the wrong diagnosis.
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