The advent of online pharmacies has marked the change of an era in the pharma sector. A mere sit-at-home, phone-in-your-hands version of going to a local pharmacy, but a long way away from the days of fetching a hakim to look at your sick ones. The life of a pharmacist has gone from reading doctors’ scribblings on paper to reading doctors’ (sometimes not) scribblings.
To buy medicines online has become not too different from buying groceries and the like from Amazon. All you need to do is go to the online pharmacy of your choice- be it Pharmeasy, Netmeds or others – and pick whatever you need, add those items to the cart and then, press the buy button. It becomes even more lucrative when online pharmacies provides discounts and promo codes to apply while checking out. These promo codes can usually reduce a part of your bill, or even provide free shipping making it an attraction to use. You can checkout Medlife coupons and save on your purchase.
Alongside, the consumer has become more knowledgeable and internet accessible. Thus people have become less dependent on doctors and often diagnose their own ailments. All these factor have caused people to turn in large numbers to these online pharmacies.
Especially in the time of Covid-19, online pharmacies have been a boon to the people, with going out difficult and staying at home and having necessary medication home-delivered the safer and simpler option. That’s why, wherever you go, you see advertisements of popular online pharmacy brands. These businesses are one of the few to have taken off in this time of tribulation and are only to going to grow bigger now. But still, there are certain points to keep in mind when people buy medicines at these online pharmacies.
How is it risky to buy medicines online?
- Lack of medical consultation
Due to the very structure of online pharmacies, the consumer doesn’t feel the need to consult doctors and while it may be so in certain cases, a professional diagnosis is still the safer option. A few online pharmacies do provide the option of online medical consultation but you will have to visit a hospital for any heavy diagnosis, which kind of defeats the purpose of online pharmacies.
- Delivery issues
The idea where people can buy medicines online, while good for basic ailments, begins to struggle when it comes to emergency cases. For instance, if you have a heart attack and are in dire need of certain medication, you can’t wait 2-3 days for the medicines you buy online to be delivered, can you? This is where the online pharmacies fail to substitute regular pharmacies.
Online pharmacies can be utilized for minor and common ailments like common cold and fever but not anything severe and urgent.
- Fake prescriptions
It’s so easy to forge medical prescriptions nowadays and people rather prefer doing so. They find it a hassle to go to a medical practitioner for a checkup, get a valid prescription and then go to an online pharmacy website- all to buy medicine for headache. Isn’t it easier to just show a piece of paper and get whatever you want? That is exactly where the problem arises. You can buy whatever medicine you want online but not necessarily what you need or is appropriate for your illness.
A doctor’s job is to assess your ailment (keeping in mind your medical history) and determine the best course of medication to a smooth recovery. You might not know which the best medicine in your case is and even the internet can’t inform you on that.
- Addictive drugs
Certain drugs can be addictive and harmful to the patient. These drugs should be only available through a legitimate prescription from a qualified medical professional. Now, when drug addiction is one of the major threats to the youth of the society, online pharmacies have to be extra careful in the drugs that they make available to the consumer.
- Availability
Turns out, contrary to popular conceptions, not everything can be found online. Compared to local medical stores, sure, the online pharmacies might have more stock available but they still don’t come close to major brands like Apollo. Medicines often, due to lack of availability, are brought from faraway locations and take too long to be delivered to the customer.
- Illegal, outdated and fake substitutes
The online pharmacy system can be, much like any other system, faulty at times. Think about it- you look for some medicine online, you go through what little information has been provided about the medicine on the website and then buy it. But there’s always a possibility that the medicine you buy online isn’t delivered to you; what you instead get is an adulterated, cheaper or expired version of it which might not have the same effect on you. Certain medicines are notorious for having side-effects and people need to keep that in mind when they buy medicines online.
And not all websites are reliable; some deliberately sell outdated medicines or their fake substitutes. It becomes easier online to fraud people this way because the consumer has no way to determine the legitimacy of these websites and has to settle for whatever’s cheapest and readily available.
So, these are the risks that exist when you buy medicines online. You expect to just sit on your bed, waiting for your medicine to arrive on your doorstep, and instead, you get the thriller novel which no one wants to read. There’s a lot more scope for improvement in the online pharma market. For example, if people from rural or remote areas, where there are no big hospitals or pharmacies, need to buy some medicines, they should be able to do it online at one of these websites and not have to travel to distant towns and cities for the medicines they want. Also, there needs to be a concrete framework that assists in the proper functioning of these online pharmacies, so that, the consumer gets the right medicine at the right price at the right time.
The online pharma market needs to understand its responsibility towards the society. Online pharmacies are not only a great business opportunity but also a step in the world’s mission of being digital everywhere. These pharmacies may have the right tools and staff for the job but they fail to understand the consumer’s medicinal requirements, which eventually counts to their setback. The medicines that people buy online shouldn’t have any ulterior effects on them and should perform their designated role. There can’t be any loopholes for people to exploit. Because if doctors are considered equal to gods in this country, then the pharmacies are no less than a holy priest. Track down the most ideal late nigh Pharmacy store close to me that has everything you need to deal with your disease.
About the Author
Devesh Gedam is a content marketing intern with a competency in creative writing.
