Bad Bugs

I have just watched a program on television about antibiotic resistance and the ‘gold’ that the doctors are holding in their hands and are supposedly intent on denying future generations.

The most dangerous bugs are those such as the hospital staph caused in part by the use of disinfection procedures and antibiotics in hospitals. There was a slight tilt to this during the program; however, the main villains were ‘these GPs’ who continue to prescribe antibiotics sometimes ten times more than others.

One enlightened commentator mentioned that giving better tools to the GP may be a very good answer to the overuse of antibiotics.

My interpretation of the current request by patients to give antibiotics is as follows: there is a significant element of mistrust in the diagnostic process – which takes place after an average of 18 seconds of the patient outlining symptoms, a limited examination, and almost no useful near-patient pathology testing – because of political, financial, and time constraints.

These are the issues that need to be addressed, and continued vilification of General Practitioners operating in incredibly compromised diagnostic situations is unhelpful.

Over two decades ago, Pegasus Health, led at that stage by General Practitioners, put in place an education program and held the labs and pharms for General Practice. This initiative showed a remarkable flattening of the upswing in the use of laboratory tests and pharmaceutical agents with no apparent reduction in the healthcare of the community. The program was closed down by the dysfunctional Ministry of Health.

Better tools, community education, sensible remuneration for time and a far more equitable way of giving healthcare and disease management is what is required.

Academic bully on this topic is just that.