The Head of Pharmacy at Pleasant Medical Centre in Ashaiman, Middle East, Stephen Ohene Sabi, has cautioned the public about the misuse of sleeping pills.
He highlighted that one of the main concerns with sleeping medications is their frequent usage.
Sleeping drugs are central nervous system depressants that slow down brain activity to aid in sleep.
Speaking at the weekly “Your Health! Our Collective Responsibility!” program, initiated by the Ghana News Agency’s Tema Regional Office to enhance health communication and promote health literacy, Mr. Sabi emphasized the need to raise awareness about the potential risks associated with these medications.
He explained that the most common type of sleeping drug is benzodiazepines, typically taken in 10mg doses.
Some individuals may wrongly assume that taking them every night is harmless. However, dependency and tolerance can lead to unintended consequences.
Mr. Sabi cautioned that relying on these medications could result in the need for significantly higher doses to achieve sleep. He advised that the solution lies in gradually reducing the intake of such drugs.
“The body adjusts with continued use, causing a physical dependence on the medication; therefore, a reduction in dosage and skipping a day or two before taking the pills will eventually reverse the body to its default,” he suggested.
Mr. Sabi stressed the importance of reading instructions and understanding the potential side effects and reactions associated with medication before taking a responsible dose.
He highlighted the World Health Organization’s advocacy for self-care, which includes proper nutrition and responsible self-medication. Individuals are encouraged to gather information about medications before consuming them.
Mr. Sabi cautioned against the abuse of medications through overdosing, emphasizing the adverse effects they can have on patients. While some medicines may have minor side effects like constipation, headaches, or diarrhea, others can cause severe side effects that may necessitate medical intervention.
Regarding women who experience blood loss during their menstrual cycles, Mr. Sabi suggested considering blood tonic medicines or consulting a healthcare professional for appropriate advice, depending on the individual situation. He also recommended consuming healthy meals that can naturally replenish blood, in addition to or instead of taking blood tonics.
Furthermore, Mr. Sabi advised individuals with health conditions such as kidney or liver problems to refrain from taking any medications without a proper prescription from a healthcare professional.
The interim Programme Manager of the Ghana Health Service’s (GHS) Non-Communicable Diseases, Dr Efua Commeh, has disclosed that the country is seeing an increase in stroke cases among young individuals under age 40.
Thestroke cases, she said, were triggered by uncontrolled hypertension that had become common in young people in the country recently.
Dr. Commeh said although stroke cases were previously recorded mainly in people between 80 and 90 years old, local hospitals were now recording them in people as young as 35 years and 40-year-olds, most of them resulting from uncontrolled hypertension.
“These strokes that originally we used to see in very aged people are now occurring in the productive work group; people who are actively working,” she said.
“They bring them to the hospital and they say nothing happened and the person collapsed. You check them and they have hypertension. It is this hypertension that gives them complications like stroke, heart attacks, andkidney diseases, among others,” she added.
Describing hypertension as a very serious health problem in the country now, Dr. Commeh said the hospitals kept seeing more young people, sometimes in their 20s, reporting to health facilities with hypertension, adding, however, that those numbers were not as huge as the older age groups.
She said averagely, the country recorded around 600,000 cases of hospital visits every year by people with hypertension.
She was speaking in an interview ahead of World Hypertension Day which will be observed on May 17, on the theme: “Measure Your Blood Pressure Accurately, Control It, Live Longer”.
Stroke causes
Dr. Commeh said stress was chiefly responsible for the recent stroke cases among young people in the country, adding that most young people in Ghana were stressed out.
“(For) Some of them, it is pressure from school, pressure from work, pressure from the home and pressure everywhere; and on top of these stresses, closing quite late from work and getting home late before eating in the night.
At that time of the night, you are not going to get any appropriate food to eat.
You end up taking fast foods, and these, among others, contribute to making us unhealthy, and they are the things that can give us hypertension,” she explained.
She said unhealthy diets, cigarette smoking, alcohol use, and physical inactivity, or the lack of exercise were other causes of stroke among young people, pointing out that such conditions were contributory factors that raised blood pressure which could develop into hypertension.
“Hypertension is said to be a silent killer.
It is called silent because when it starts rising, you don’t notice anything.
The first thing you know is you have a severe headache and then the person collapses, and by that time, it would have gotten a bit too late,” she said.
Unfortunately, she said, most people in the country, including young people, hardly checked their blood pressure, adding that for most people, the first time their blood pressure was checked was after they had collapsed and had been rushed to hospital.
Preventing hypertension
Dr Commeh advised young people to have enough rest, pay attention to their diet and reduce fried foods, fats, and oils, as well as salts and sugars to avoid getting hypertension.
She also recommended that they should take small walks in and around their offices after sitting behind their desks for two hours, climb office stairs once or twice a day, and eat more fruits and vegetables.
She urged corporate organizations to undertake proper medical screening for their staff at least once a year.
“Test for fats, blood sugar, urine function, and blood pressure.
That routine screening will help us so that if there is something going wrong, it can easily be picked up and managed,” she said.
She advised young people already diagnosed with diabetes and hypertension to take their medication, explaining that hypertension and diabetes could result in problems, including erectile dysfunction and reproductive problems when left uncontrolled.
Dr. Commeh advised the public to walk to a pharmacy or any clinic to regularly have their blood pressure checked, at least once a month, and to get conditions controlled if they were diagnosed with any, in order that they might live healthier and longer.
The Chairman of the National Executive Committee, Ghana National Chamber of Pharmacy, Harrison Abutiate, says the unstable Ghanaian currency and delayed payments to pharmacies, particularly by government facilities, are crippling the pharmaceutical industry.
He said members of the Chamber had extended credits to local distributors, clinics, hospitals and other health facilities but the delay in payment was worrying.
Other factors exacerbating their plight are the high-interest rates and increased benchmark values.
Mr Abutiate said this at the India-Ghana Pharma Business Summit, dubbed; “Managing the Economic Challenges in Pharma Business in Ghana,” which brought together the value-chain industry players to discuss areas of collaboration in both countries.
“The current developments had eroded our finances and business survival….and with the other challenges, the situation does not help in production, planning and pricing of medicines in Ghana,” he said.
Mr Abutiate said the situation necessitated the Chamber’s decision to return to the ‘Cash & Carry’ method recently.
He said action should be expedited on the Dawa Industrial Zone project, a 150-acre land to be developed into a Pharma park, where the production of various pharmaceutical products would be undertaken by various entities under a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV).
Mr Micheal Okyere Baafi, the Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, said the Government took keen interest in the operations of the pharmaceutical industry and was developing a policy to attract investments into the business.
It had already given out US$ 415 million as loans through Participating Financial Institutions (PFIs).
“We are only doing about 30 percent of the whole demand of the Pharmaceutical businesses in Ghana, and summits like this can spur collaboration and investments to bridge the gap,” he said.
Mr Sugandh Rajaram, the Indian High Commissioner to Ghana, said Indian businesses were ready for opportunities to partner with their Ghanaian counterparts to explore the pharma trade.
Export from India to Ghana in 2022 was about US$ 200 million, he said.
Mr Rajaram said it was time the local pharmaceutical companies worked with Indian businesses to ensure value addition.
The Chamber of Pharmacy Ghana has announced the adoption of the Cash and Carry regime for the supply of pharmaceutical products to government and other institutions.
The Chamber, including the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers, Importers and Suppliers say, the current economic downturn including the exchange rate is telling on their business hence the move.
Addressing a Press Conference in Accra, chairman of the Ghana National Chamber of Pharmacy, Harrison K. Abutiate explained that, the move has become necessary to save their ailing businesses.
“The Pharmaceutical Industry is credit-driven. Public Sector pays on the average 6-12 months, because of delayed payments of the National Health Insurance Scheme(NHIS). Majority of private facilities make payments for all supplies within 3-4 months. In the current circumstances of daily devaluation of the cedi, it’s imperative to state that pharmaceutical supplies on credit under this time has led to erosion of operational capital of pharmaceutical importers and manufacturers,” he said.
He said the fast depreciation of the cedi has affected the price of medicines on the counter as some pharmaceutical supplies are up by 100 percent as a result of the devaluation of the local currency.
He also bemoaned the reversal of the discount on benchmark value which has negatively impacted the cost of doing business in the country.
According to him, if the situation remains the same, local manufacturers will be forced out of business to create room for fake products to dominate the market.
“On the industry front interest in continuous investment in official and pharmaceutical business is waning. Very soon a sizeable number of industry players may be forced to fold up or lay off staff. This becomes a dangerous recipe for criminals to engage in nefarious activities and flood the market with fake and sub-standard products just to compromise quality and efficacy of medicines, thereby putting the health of all Ghanaians at risk.
“The National Chamber of Pharmacy, the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of Ghana, and the Pharmaceutical Importers and Wholesalers Association of Ghana, therefore call for an immediate action to save the industry.
“The Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning should release funds to immediately to pay for the long-standing debt of over 9 months and to push to clear all overdue debts.”
Pharmatrust Company Limited, a registered pharmaceutical company in the country has presented Veronica buckets and quantities of alcohol-based hand sanitisers worth GH¢10,000 to the Pharmacy Council.
The Chief Executive Officer of Pharmatrust, Mr. Anthony Kwame Adjepong who presented the items, said the world today is facing new realities and disruption for healthcare professionals worldwide as a result of the coronavirus (COVID 19) pandemic.
He said the world is in dire need of creative and inventive minds and international cooperation to address this novel pandemic more than ever and added that the novel SARS CoV-2 which is causing the disease termed as COVID 19 is putting an unprecedented pressure on social, health and economic systems across the globe.
He said the gesture has come at a time to respond favourably to the tall list of requests by the Pharmacy Council.
The Registrar of the Pharmacy Council, Dr Audu Rauf, on behalf of the governing board, management and staff of the Pharmacy Council, received the items and expressed appreciation to Mr. Adjepong for the support.
He thanked the pharmaceutical sector for playing their part in these difficult times and advised all pharmacists to stock and dispense only FDA approved alcohol-based hand sanitizers.
The National Executive Council of the Chamber of Pharmacy, Ghana (CoPG) has directed its membership to, henceforth, request government hospitals to provide payment guarantees before medicines could be supplied to them.
This, according to the Chamber is the only way to sustain their individual companies.
The Chamber has further said health facilities owing more than three months shall no more enjoy any credit facilities from their members.
“Our position is as a result of the delay in payment by the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) through the Health Service Providers,†the Chamber said in a statement.
The Chamber came to this conclusion at its meeting on 22 January, 2020 in Accra, where they deliberated on issues of national importance and matters confronting the pharmaceutical industry and trade with the delayed reimbursement by health service providers high on the agenda.
CoPG has further called on the government to ensure adherence to the NHI Act on re-imbursements to service providers.
The Chamber also want the review of the current Ministry of Health framework contract and revert to the decentralised procurement system by the regional health directorates and teaching hospitals, through national competitive tenders.
“The Chamber will like to remind the government and all stakeholders that, we will ensure that good-quality health commodities are available, accessible, and affordable to all people living in Ghana and anchored by a sustainable, reliable, responsive, efficient, and well-coordinated supply chain,†the statement signed by Mr Harrison Kofi Abutiate, Chairman of the CoPG added.
