The current situation of Pakistan has to lead to inflation which means it’s hard to cut on the budget. In amidst of these financial crises, high-cost prescriptions can take a toll on people in desperate need of genuine medication. The skyrocketing prices of the prescriptions also have to do a lot with patient and consultant’s perception of Quality related to higher prices and Pharmaceutical Companies being more focused on commercialism rather than treating the patients honestly. 

The pharmaceutical system works against the morals of medicine but what they don’t get is that you can’t put a price on someone’s life. 

My father was recently prescribed Tenormin 50mg manufactured by ICI which cost Rs. 105 per pack of 14 tablets besides a whole other list of medicines which included tablets for High Cholesterol beside others. Being a young graduate and into a new job looking after my retired parents the prescription cost per day was coming to around Rs. 80 per day thus rounding it off to Rs. 2400 per month. This was a huge burden on my Rs. 50,000 salary where I have to pay for utilities and groceries for the house and at least one visit of my father and mother costing a total of Rs. 4000 per month.

I had no other options left but to ask my doctor friends for what I now know of as me-too products or branded generic products. I called up my doctor’s friend who advised me to buy Zafnol Tablets which cost Rs. 51.22 per pack of 20 tablets thus reducing my per day cost of this tablet to Rs. 10 per day or Rs. 300 per month. 

This might not look like a huge amount to someone but meant a lot to me, now that I had to look after my parents and take care of my parents as their only child and every penny counted.

Before I bought Zafnol, I went back to my fathers’ doctor and asked him whether I can buy Zafnol instead of Tenormin and he said yes, why not? I was shocked. I asked him why had he prescribed me Tenormin which was almost 3 times the price of Zafnol when this less expensive product was already available. He simply had no answer and I was shocked.

I again went back to my doctor’s friend who currently works for a Government Heart Institute in Karachi and practices with a Consultant Cardiologist and he informed me that patients who pay Rs. 2500 to Rs. 3000 per doctor visit does not like prescriptions of local companies and prefers high priced medicines. Secondly of course in some cases there is the interest of the doctors also involved whereby companies are “taking care” of the doctors and consultants.

Coming from a middle-class background and after being made aware of this practice by doctors and perception of the patients I have decided to do something about it.

I with my friends have now planned to make an App from which you can just write the name of the medication and the app will give you the various alternatives available with prices.

I hope that this app will help millions like me to save money and not have our money spent on weddings and foreign trips to doctors.