a doctor has to prescribe a these so they should be talking to doctors who over prescribe them. my doctor will not give one unless he feels its warrants it and with children he rather lets it run its course where possible. it is not the patients fault they feel sick and go to the doctors just to make sure it is ok, at the end of the check up the doctor decides what to prescribe not the patient

ironically most don’t realise that if your illness is viral and you take antibiotics you actually lower your immunity further. I presume there is bad news on way from HSE, they have never taken this issue seriously but suddenly they need to look like they’re doing something?

The HSE has diagnosed the illness; people are taking too many antibiotics. But it has prescribed the wrong treatment: http://saoili.blogspot.com/2011/11/open-letter-to-dr-fidelma-fitzpatrick.html

If I had read this 25 years ago, I might have been impressed at the HSE tackling the issue, and dictating best practice. I might have been impressed with a public information campaign. I’d have been impressed at a public information campaign being second in importance to a campaign to stop GPs giving antibiotics to people like they were lollipops. A quarter of a century later, I am far from impressed. Way too little, way too late. The waste of time and the waste of money involved by GPs prescribing unnecessary antibiotics pales into insignificance in the face of the incalculable loss of life, and loss of quality of life. For seven years they train, with the major help of our taxes, and then behave like sheer idiots in this regard. Over the decades, every time I hear a work colleague chime, “I’ve a bit of a cold so I’m going to the doc for some antibiotics” I get so angry. I know they’ll be sick again in two week’s time, because the antibiotics will mess with their immune system – their resistance to the person next to them on the bus coughing will be minimal to nought. We will never know how many people have died due to hospital acquired infection due to antibiotics being resistant to bacteria, due to antibiotic overuse and abuse. I know someone who chose not to have a surgery to reduce his chance of a cancer recurrence, because he’d witnessed so many people battling bacterial infections post surgery. On balance, he felt the risk of a recurrence was the lesser risk. I have to wonder ‘why now?’ with this unspeakably overdue statement from the HSE. Why not a quarter of a century ago? Is there a lucrative pharma deal languishing in the filing cabinet of a penthouse office suite? Or recently shredded? Are we getting Messages From Merkel that we have to act upon? Is there a good solid reason why insanity in this regard has prevailed for so long? Did someone in the HSE just take their reality check medication? Answers please.

Good article on this. People in this country do love their anti-biotics a bit too much…

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/17/antibiotic-superbugs-europe-idUSL5E7MH2A420111117

I was in the UK over 20 years ago and I read a public information poster about doctors being incentivised not to prescribe unnecessary antibiotics. Why has it taken the HSE so long. Having spent the last 10 years working in childcare it depressed me to see how many children and staff are given antibiotics for viral illnesses. I can only think that doctors are doing this to justify the fees they charge. After all, if someone pays 45 euros for a doctors visit they don’t want to come away empty handed.

I can only blame the gobshite Irish public for bacterial resistance to antibiotics and their overuse. I heard one lady proclaim that her doctor was a “rip-off” because he had diagnosed her throat infection as being viral, and had not prescribed antibiotics. She felt she had wasted 50 euro because she left his surgery without a prescription. Her attitude is not uncommon, and is commonly seen across Ireland with patients plaguing GP’s to prescribe antibiotics or harassing pharmacies for a “repeat” of some antibiotic they were prescribed many moons ago. All so “the kitchen sink can be thrown at the problem” and to “hit ” the infection, even if that infection is viral and they have been informed of this.

But then again the Irish are complete gobshites in many ways from the IMF being here to voting FF in three times, to building housing estates without sewerage connected in the middle of nowhere, the contempt with which law and order is held, to the likes of Jackie Healy Rae being in the Dail or drunken Cowen singing off the back of lorries in Clara, etc.

So When are the HSE being disbanded the sooner the better.