Due to the non-availability of qualified medical practitioners in rural and tribal area, many varieties of treatment procedures are growing evergreen. Starting from a school teacher to a Purohit in the temple, postman, Aya, ward boy, workers in a medical shop ex compounders and class four employees of the dispensaries as a whole even the old patients start prescribing medicines to ill patients voluntarily. Some quacks, advocate high-cost antibiotics pain painkillers, and even Corticosteroids. Added to that they erratically use different types of medicines at a very short time changing one course after another without giving sufficient time for the particular antibiotic regime to act completely. Thereby, for example, a patient with a fever when goes to an RMP, without thinking about whether it is viral fever, malaria fever, typhoid fever, dengue fever, chikungunya, or tuberculosis he or she starts on the first day very costly antibiotic which if not given the required result within two to three days that antibiotic will be changed to some other group. In other words, one-day malaria treatment, second-day typhoid treatment, and third-day dengue treatment like most of the RMPs play with innocent poor patients from rural, tribal, and slum backgrounds just like drug trials on guinea pigs.
Once the condition of the patient becomes precarious then in such dangerous condition that patients are referred to territory care hospitals, where it would be a tough job to save the patient. Though there is a great need for RMPs in rural areas, unethical practices, and irregular treatments are given by them as there are no strict guidelines by the government to check the quality of treatment, they give thereby resistant bugs being created in the community. To some extent, if the RMPs confine themselves to giving first aid like dressing for bleeding injuries, first-line safe drugs to fever diarrhea, vomiting, and palliative care would be an inordinate benefit to society. But contrary to that the RMP system is damaging the health of many people.
The other side of the coin is that the rural medical practitioner (RMP) system is a vital part of the healthcare system in rural areas, where medical facilities are limited. RMPs, also known as Uncertified Rural Practitioners (URPs), are private providers who offer curative care for a fee: They are often residents or people living in urban slums, They may have some formal or informal training, such as working as compounders or clinic technician, They practice allopathic, homeopathic, and other modern systems of medicine, They are a crucial part of the rural healthcare system because of their proximity to people and low cost of treatment, RMPs are a source of a large percentage of care delivered in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa: In India, they account for 55% of all providers, In Uganda, they account for 77%, In rural Bangladesh, they account for close to 96%, However, the quality of treatment offered by RMPs remains questionable. They can pose serious threats to the population, including Irrational and dangerous drug prescriptions, Unauthorized interventions, Improper waste disposal, Unsafe injections, and Unauthorized dispensing of narcotic drugs and psychopharmaceuticals.
After Corona pandemic online treatments and treatment from pharmacists have dramatically increased. The problem with the online treatment is the failure of clinical examination and practically seeing the lesion with a focus is not happening. Hence failure of proper diagnosis thereby incomplete treatment. Pharmacists in India are mostly either simple diploma holders or just matriculate with enough money to start a medical store. Their main concentration is on selling the medical products that they have without knowing the pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics. It is a sad affair that most of the time patients never blame the pharmacist even if they give the wrong medication but they try to attack the doctor nearby even for a small allergic reaction due to a molecule prescribed by a qualified doctor but the pharmacist giving an alternative medicine manufactured by an unlicensed pharmaceutical company. This is not realized by intellectuals and also the administrators.
Further to this of late, it has been a bad practice for many educated to depend on the Google doctors and also on the pharmacists of nearby pharmacies. People who depend on Google’s advice may become insane as it is difficult to analyze the advice given by Google which is very complicated and misleading. For example, if someone looks for the cause of simple urticarial a skin rash that appears as itchy, raised, red bumps that may burn or sting can be caused by several substances or situations, and causes including a symptom of HIV due to weakening of the immune system, infections, and some medications, the patient leaves all ordinary causes and thinks seriously on the rare cause of HIV that may lead to suicidal tendencies.