How self-medication is poisoning Kashmir’s people in slow motion
From city chemist shops to village kiryana counters, antibiotics, painkillers, and steroids are being dispensed like candies; no prescription, no record, no questions asked. The result is a public health crisis unfolding in slow motion, with officialdom largely looking away. A recent indicative survey by local health activists in a few districts suggested that nearly 6 out of 10 households had purchased antibiotics in the last year without consulting a doctor. In some urban pockets, pharmacists privately admit that over half of their daily sales involve prescription-only medicines given purely on the patient’s request or the chemist’s guess. Ask any pharmacist in Srinagar or a small town in north or south Kashmir, and the answer is the same: people walk in, name a drug, or just point to a strip they used earlier, and walk out with a refill. Fever? Take an antibiotic. Body ache? Two painkillers. Why visit an overburdened hospital or wait in a queue when a chemist counter has become the de facto clinic for thousands? This culture is not an accident. It is the direct consequence of a broken health system, weak regulation, and a worrying absence of public awareness. OPD departments are overcrowded, rural health centres are often understaffed, and appointments are hard to get. In this vacuum, unregulated over-the-counter sales flourish. Many chemist shops in the Valley now function as parallel, unlicensed consulting rooms with shop workers casually recommending powerful drugs without any medical training. The dangers are enormous. Local clinicians warn that resistance to common antibiotics is rising alarmingly, with some hospital labs informally reporting 30–40% of samples showing poor response to first-line drugs. Habit-forming painkillers are creating dependency and mental health complications that rarely surface until they explode inside families. Steroids given for quick relief are damaging organs over the long term. And, perhaps most tragically, self-medication masks serious illnesses, delaying diagnosis until it is too late. Officials cannot pretend ignorance. Periodic drives and token inspections do not amount to a policy. Where is the strict enforcement of prescription-only rules for antibiotics and psychotropic drugs? Where are the surprise checks, license cancellations, and penalties that would send a clear signal? Why does the medical council not act against those practitioners who casually prescribe over the phone, encouraging this dangerous shortcut? Equally missing is a serious public awareness campaign. Schools, mosques, media, and local health workers must be mobilised to drive home a simple truth: self-medication is not harmless thrift, it is slow poison.
