PDI decries rising effects of self-medication

Adekunle Yusuf

A TELE-HEALTH service provider, Pre-Diagnosis International, has decried the increasing rate of COVID-19 fatalities arising from self-medication among Nigerians.

The tele-health firm said that most of the deaths being recorded in the country lately might have been due to the negative effects of growing self-medication among citizens, saying this is fallout of inability of people to access proper clinical care due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This was a major highlight of a position paper issued by the organisation recently on how public healthcare administrators can curtail the impact of COVID-19 on health delivery nationwide. The paper noted that more Nigerians, especially those in the lower socio-economic strata, have been finding it hard to access quality and efficient healthcare due to financial constraints and ignorance. Consequently, more cases of self-medication leading to growing abuse of anti-malarial drugs, analgesics and anti-biotics have continued to trigger underlying health conditions, thereby causing avoidable fatalities.

“For a country that has for long been reeling under the various negative impacts of an underfunded health sector, Nigeria’s public health delivery system has been seriously dislocated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Health sector regulatory authorities cannot afford to watch the tide of frightening mortality and morbidity in the sector continue, especially among the poor and vulnerable citizens,” PDI said.

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As its contribution to energising a national drive to revamp public health delivery, PDI has introduced a grassroots-targeted tele-health app to assist the nation’s quest to maximise the scarce health resources in the delivery of health services to the populace. Designed to reduce self-medication and its dangers, with a focus to help the poor and vulnerable Nigerians, particularly those in rural and semi urban hard-to-reach parts of the country to access quality clinical services from their phones, the PDI app is an interactive mobile application that gives subscribers immediate access to highly trained and experienced full-time doctors. Users can access quality healthcare from home, office, on a business trip or vacation.