Asia's bitter pill to swallow in hospital services

Customers buy goods in an independent pharmacy in Hong Kong. The World Health Organization estimates that as many as half of all medicines are inappropriately prescribed, dispensed or sold, which can lead to health problems. AFP

Overprescription and overtreatment remain big issues for healthcare

Plagued by cost overruns and a $4.2 billion deficit, Taiwan's National Health Insurance set out in 2012 to find out what lay behind the problem.

The results were a mixture of the expected and unexpected. Other cities, it turned out, were not paying their fair share, so the entire cost fell on Taipei. At the same time, patients were visiting hospitals more than anywhere else in the world and being prescribed many more drugs than they needed or could ever take.

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In one instance, a patient who suffered from a range of ailments from high blood pressure to heart disease and asthma was given enough pharmaceutical products to last him 22 years, said Lee Chun-fu, an official with the Bureau of National Health Insurance that runs Taiwan's healthcare system.

The issue of overprescription of pharmaceuticals is visible not only in Taiwan but around the world.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that as many as half of all medicines are inappropriately prescribed, dispensed or sold. Overprescription of medicine and overtreatment is emerging as a significant problem across Asia, one that governments are working to address.

For WHO, the concern is health related. Medicines that are not prescribed properly can lead to health problems. Take antibiotics, for example. If not properly prescribed and taken, they can lead to the emergence of resistant bacteria.

This is already a problem with diseases such as tuberculosis, of which there are resistant strains emerging globally.

"Antibiotic resistance is rising for many different pathogens that are threats to health," said Tom Frieden, director of the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

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